Leeds have averted crisis - financial expert

Financial expert Tom Cannon believes Jonathan Woodgate’s £9m transfer to Newcastle has steadied the Elland Road ship.

Cannon, a professor at the Kingston Business School, claims Leeds had to sell Woodgate to avoid slipping into administration.

Now manager Terry Venables has further eased the pressure on Leeds by agreeing to stay on as coach until the end of the season at least.

The string of high-profile departures has ended for now with the closure of the January transfer window and Cannon believes Leeds came to the end of the month in a much healthier position than they started it.

Cannon claims Leeds’ current financial troubles are the result of a gamble gone wrong under former manager David O’Leary, when the club spent big but failed to regularly reach the Champions League.

He said: “Players were acquired on the assumption they would break through to a regular place in the Champions League and all the money that involves.

“This was a bet. They bet the company that the acquisitions would mean they would break through alongside Manchester United and Arsenal into the Champions League.

“The buck stops with the board. They won’t pay the price – the truth is, the fans will pay the price.

“There is a real risk Leeds United would have been forced into administration, I think the club would have faced that scale of crisis.

“There would be a question of whether Leeds United could fulfil their fixtures.”

But Cannon suspects the money Leeds have recouped in recent months from the sales of Woodgate, Robbie Fowler, Rio Ferdinand and one-time Liverpool target Lee Bowyer will not have been enough to give Venables much prospect of future spending.

He added: “In my opinion, all of the Rio money will have been burnt off by losses.

“They are a heavily indebted club and the truth is they have sold a £15m player for £8m if they are lucky.

“They have lost about £9million on Bowyer in about nine months and lost £1million on Fowler in a week.

“The truth is that they have not earned a tremendous amount of money.

“Although they are getting £3million from Manchester City from the Fowler deal, if they get £2m cash in hand they will be doing well when you take into account lawyers’ fees and so on.”