Leeds MAY Have to Reveal Owners if Promoted

[Macmoish]

Although I'm sure if Leeds do get promoted, they will somehow avoid doing so.
Guardian

Leeds United must reveal owners if promoted to Premier League

• League will take 'harsher' view on transparency, MPs told
• Leeds says owned by holding company based in Caribbean

Leeds will be forced to reveal exactly who owns the club if they are promoted to the Premier League. The league's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, said the body will apply the rules on ownership transparency more strictly than the Football League has done.

Scudamore told the culture, media and sport committee: "The Football League have chosen not to apply the rule as robustly as we think we will be applying it. The Football League have one view of how to interpret that rule and we have a more stern, or harsh, view of what the rule means.

"Our clubs absolutely agree unanimously that we should tell the public who owns the clubs and anything short of that is inadequate. If it arises, if Leeds United on sporting merit deserves to be in the Premier League, we will do all we can to persuade them to stay within the rules."

The Leeds chief executive, Shaun Harvey, told MPs last month the club's owners are a holding company called FSF based in the West Indian island of Nevis and owned by three discretionary trusts. The owners of these trusts are unknown but have appointed two men, Patrick Murrin and Peter Boatman, to run the club and they had asked Ken Bates to be chairman.

Leeds' ownership statement says no single person or company owns more than 10% of the discretionary trusts.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/apr/05/leeds-united-owners-premier-league

[harlowranger]

Oh so they dont have to reveal if they stay in the Championship , just if there promoted!

[Macmoish]

Leeds respond!

Leeds Official Site

NO PROBLEM WITH RULES

06 Apr 2011

We'll satisfy requirements, says chairman...

Ken Bates today made it clear once more that there was no problem with relation to the ownership of Leeds United.

He was speaking to Yorkshire Radio after comments made by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore during the latest meeting of a Culture, Media and Sport select committee inquiry into football governance.

In answer to questions, Scudamore said that as he understood it the Premier League would require disclosure from Leeds that was over and above that which the Football league had required.

But the United chairman said: "We are fully aware of Premiership rules because when the Football League drafted their rules they did them in consultation with the Premier League to make sure that they fitted in with each other and we satisfied the Football League.

"We know exactly what the requirements are of the Premier League rules and we do not anticipate any problems in meeting those requirements.

"I think it is a sad comment on this select committee when they have so many things to talk about and really look at in detail, and depth, all they are concerned about is Capello's contract and Leeds United.

"It says one of two things; Is this select committee entirely missing the point or, alternatively, there is not a lot wrong with the state of football," the chairman added.

Following the announcement earlier this week of the encouraging financial situation at Elland Road, the chairman said: "Behind the scenes at our club we are very pleased. We have a healthy club,no financial problems and we are trading profitably and trading carefully."

www.leedsunited.com/news/20110406/no-problem-with-rules_2247585_2332460

[Macmoish]

David Conn

Why do Leeds United not reveal their owners?

The House of Commons select committee has added to the pressure on Ken Bates' club to state who is behind the offshore ownership

The mystery about who owns Leeds United, the chest-out Yorkshire club chaired by Ken Bates, has travelled a long way since the Guardian began reporting on it four years ago, when Bates and his fellow directors put Leeds into administration owing £35m to creditors.

The House of Commons select committee on culture media and sport, in its inquiry into football, have repeatedly asked about the Leeds ownership, which is held by three offshore trusts in tax havens administered via Zurich. The select committee clearly decided it is a concern for football supporters not even to know who owns their clubs. Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's chief executive, told the inquiry yesterday that if Simon Grayson's team were to win promotion to the top flight, before Leeds are accepted into the Premier League: "Our rules would require better disclosure of the ownership than is currently the case."

Scudamore appears to have decided Leeds have not revealed enough, and he had a swipe at the Football League's position, which, although a touch patronising, probably hurt. The League did ask Leeds last year to tell them what the ownership arrangements were - Bates, who lives in Monaco, says he has no connection with the owners but they have entrusted him with running the club – but at that point the League did not require its clubs to publish who owns them.

Then in the summer the league introduced the same Premier League rule that clubs must declare publicly who owns 10% or more of the shares. Leeds, on their website, then declared that the ownership is via the three trusts, administered via Zurich, but no individual owns more than 10%. Therefore, the club said, they do not have to name any individuals.

We asked the Football League what evidence Leeds actually supplied them with to satisfy them no individual has more than 10%. The League said we were not entitled to know. Its statement said:

"The statement published by Leeds United outlines that no individual owns more than 10% of the club. The clubs has therefore complied with Football League regulations. Any additional discussions and exchanges of information between Leeds United and the Football League are on a confidential basis, as is the case with all our clubs."

The FA general-secretary Alex Horne told the select committee that a few executives at the FA and Football League know who the owners are, but they will not reveal any detail to the public. So the FA and Football League, which have introduced rules on transparency in recent years, are being made to appear secretive themselves, by the letter of their own rules.

Scudamore, wounded by the Portsmouth wreckage under a helter skelter of four separate owners last year, says the Premier League now goes further, requiring disclosure, and also sources of club funding.

When Bates gave evidence in the libel action brought against him by former Leeds director Melvyn Levi, which Bates lost, the Leeds chairman said he had been "doing business offshore for 30 years". Patrick Murrin, who holds a "management share" in the Swiss ownership vehicle for Leeds, was Bates' accountant in Guernsey, another offshore tax haven, for many years. When Bates was Chelsea's chairman, Murrin was a director, representing a large shareholding, also owned via Guernsey offshore trusts, which was never identified, even after the club was bought by Roman Abramovich in 2003.

Yet times have changed, and the pressure to disclose more fully who owns football clubs - even Leeds United - appears to be gathering pace.


www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2011/apr/06/ken-bates-leeds-united-who-owns