It’s crunch time for Leeds United. Their lead over third-place has significantly diminished over the last few weeks after winning just two of their last nine league games, and they’re in serious danger of dropping out of the automatic promotion spots.
If Leeds don’t go up this season it will be nothing short of a disaster for the club with reliable journalists predicting a mass exodus as well as the departure of Marcelo Bielsa.
However, Angus Kinnear’s recent comments perfectly highlight why it is now or never for Leeds.
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What’s been said then?
Talking to BBC Radio Leeds (5/2/20, 6pm), Kinnear spoke about the club’s current financial situation.
“When the accounts come out we’re going to be right at the upper limit of the profit and sustainability threshold. And we’re not going to breach it like other clubs have. That’s not the way we want to operate, we’re working within the limits.
“We don’t agree with the rules and we don’t think they help drive sustainability, in fact, we think they lead to some creative accounting counter to the healthy running of football clubs, and there are a number of clubs that are campaigning against it.
“That’s why in the last transfer window we had to cut our cloth and the thought of any Championship club paying £25m for a player like Jarrod Bowen, that just isn’t possible within P&S rules unless they have a significant parachute payment.”
Now or never
Leeds aren’t going to be taking a big financial gamble anytime soon, but if they don’t go up, their Championship rivals will be in a position to.
Parachute payments are a huge thing, as is the TV deal in the Premier League, and it means that the majority of teams in the top-flight come down with a plethora of talent that can be sold for big money.
Just look at the sides battling it out at the bottom of the Premier League at the moment, aside from Norwich they’re all squad’s full of players that could command substantial sums.
West Ham’s squad is valued at just over £322m by Transfermarkt, Bournemouth’s is at just under £309m, while Aston Villa and Watford sit comfortably above £200m. In comparison, Leeds’ squad is valued at over £84m.
Not only do these teams have sellable assets, but as Kinnear says, parachute payments mean that they can blow other Championship sides out of the water financially.
Leeds currently have the perfect storm brewing at Elland Road to get out of the Championship, but if they don’t it could be a long time before they get an opportunity like this again. They’re likely to lose a number of key men this summer, and the financial gap between the top-flight and second-tier is continuously growing.
In other news, one man is inexplicably escaping blame at Leeds.
