"For six years, between 2005 and 2011, with Ken Bates the chairman throughout, nobody in football knew who owned Leeds United, one of football's biggest and most famed clubs."
Regardless off your opinion of Leeds on the pitch, their ownership history is shady... After the famous fall from grace, Ken Bates was made chairman, as the front man of an anonymously owned company based in the Cayman Islands, a well known tax haven, although Mr Bates claimed he owns no shares in the holding company.
After a 2010 report saying football league clubs must declare who owned a 'substantial part' of any club (10%), must be declared. Leeds claimed no company or individual owned such stake, and the Leeds CEO, Shaun Harvey stated neither he did not know who owned the club, and neither did Bates.
This prompted the Premier League to state, if the club were to reach promotion, the clubs ownership would have to be investigated, and the EPL would interpret its rules more strongly, forcing the owners to come forward, or else threaten to block promotion (at the expense of the fans).
Days after the premier league announced this, Leeds announced that Ken Bates had bought the club (how convenient) The unnamed investors who took the club out of administration and saved them from liquidation, appeared to suddenly sell up.
Bates (himself a tax exile living in Monaco, bought the club from the Cayman investors, with a company 100% owned by Bates, registered to Nevis, in the Caribbean (yet another tax haven).
No mention was made of how Bates payed for the club, or equally why the Cayman investors sold up with the clubs value set to rocket, should the club reach the top flight (a possible situation with a (relatively) small amount of investment in Jan 11).
Bates has now banned the BBC and the Guardian from reporting from Elland Road, except for the BBCs contract to show highlights for the football league show.
Bates now blasts out his propaganda to the clubs fans via Yorkshire Radio (owned by the club) and the match day programmes.
Paraphrased from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15241344.stm
BATES OUT! MOT!
Regardless off your opinion of Leeds on the pitch, their ownership history is shady... After the famous fall from grace, Ken Bates was made chairman, as the front man of an anonymously owned company based in the Cayman Islands, a well known tax haven, although Mr Bates claimed he owns no shares in the holding company.
After a 2010 report saying football league clubs must declare who owned a 'substantial part' of any club (10%), must be declared. Leeds claimed no company or individual owned such stake, and the Leeds CEO, Shaun Harvey stated neither he did not know who owned the club, and neither did Bates.
This prompted the Premier League to state, if the club were to reach promotion, the clubs ownership would have to be investigated, and the EPL would interpret its rules more strongly, forcing the owners to come forward, or else threaten to block promotion (at the expense of the fans).
Days after the premier league announced this, Leeds announced that Ken Bates had bought the club (how convenient) The unnamed investors who took the club out of administration and saved them from liquidation, appeared to suddenly sell up.
Bates (himself a tax exile living in Monaco, bought the club from the Cayman investors, with a company 100% owned by Bates, registered to Nevis, in the Caribbean (yet another tax haven).
No mention was made of how Bates payed for the club, or equally why the Cayman investors sold up with the clubs value set to rocket, should the club reach the top flight (a possible situation with a (relatively) small amount of investment in Jan 11).
Bates has now banned the BBC and the Guardian from reporting from Elland Road, except for the BBCs contract to show highlights for the football league show.
Bates now blasts out his propaganda to the clubs fans via Yorkshire Radio (owned by the club) and the match day programmes.
Paraphrased from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15241344.stm
BATES OUT! MOT!