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Realitycheck's rumours posts with other poster's replies to Realitycheck's rumours posts
08 May 2014 20:34:29
Academy is closed after Sunday for 'essential maintenance'?? All staff bar 4 admin staff have been given extended holidays? Training (without facilities) has been cut to one evening a week. Not sure what is happening to the scholars? Not sure how you hold on to good coaches and young players if this is the future? Jury's out on Cleinio now for sure!
1.) Why make comments like that when you haven't got a clue as to what's going on?, why question Cellino, he's dead right for this club so let him get on with it without sniping.
2.) Maybe 'essential maintenance' just means that they're making improvements, maybe academy staff are on extended holidays because the season has ended! I understand that past owners actions have made fans deeply suspicious, but there is no need to jump to conclusions.
3.) Dont even know what you are talking about poster one. He has been in the job less than a month and whining has started. Unbelievable
4.) 09 May 2014 15:41:27
Maybe you should change your name or at least take one until we know what's really happening! Let's wait and see what the club say before we start having a pop at anyone - unreal!
5.) 09 May 2014 15:53:36
YEP report that it is indeed cost cutting and necessary staff re located to ER - perfect financial sense! It's not just about ploughing endless funds in! we need to turn the finances around. Re open in June when squad come back from their jollies! Again makes sense not ideal but good business sense
6.) I had heard that we have had to agree with the FA to install an outside artificial surface pitch or risk losing our Level 2 academy status and dropping to level 3?
Perhaps this is the maintenance required or a mixture of both cost cutting and maintenance?
7.) In an owner I want what we haven't had for a long time. I want an experienced football man, I want an owner who has cash rather than one who see's us as a short term piggy bank, I want an owner who will pay off Bates' debts and will also sort out Haighs maze of inter company loans. This will take time but short term pain is needed for us to have long term gain.
Realitycheck's banter posts with other poster's replies to Realitycheck's banter posts
20 Jun 2014 12:21:53
"Cellino said he was looking to move away from the club's Thorp Arch training complex, around eight miles north of the city." (BBC Just now)
So what does this mean for attracting good players, retaining talented youth and attracting the next generation of players when we are already surrounded by Cat 1 and 2 academies (Middlesborough is Cat one and there's plenty of Div one Cat 2's so don't give me luxury we cannot afford nonsense). As a Cat 2 Huddersfield will be able to come and take talented youngsters for minimal compensation if we are not there - I don't even think you can sign players under 12 years old if you are not Cat 2.
I have repeatedly said that he aims to dismantle the youth set-up and it appears that his intention is clearer - you cannot just walk into a new Cat 2 facility. Look at what the Pozzo family did to Watford set-up. Its an Italian thing?
1.) I think this is a smokescreen. MC is not willing to pay the price stated in the buy-back agreement and is trying to scare the landlord that he will be stuck with a complex nobody wants. Expect MC to purchase Thorpe Arch at a reduced price within 12 months.
2.) 20 Jun 2014 14:40:24
All good points, however if paying for this means we will always be flirting with administration what can he do. Previous boards have consistently sold our best players to make ends meet, mortgage everything including the kitchen sink etc. we have to comply with FFP so the only way is to cut costs to the bone and hopefully have a bigger budget for today's team. I would love another Batty, Speed, Woodgate to come through, while ever we remain in the Championship, if they do, how will we keep them? If Byram had been fit do you think he would still be at Leeds. I think with the rent on Elland Rd, rent on Thorpe Park, costs most other teams with academy's don't have it's a luxury we cannot afford. The other solution would be to buy both of them and save the rent which would run the academy!
3.) 20 Jun 2014 14:59:17
He's always talked about developing youth. All he is saying is leaving TA and building a new facility closer to ER. This makes sense. Why pay nearly 4 million to buy TA when he can build something closer to ER for a lot less.
4.) Thorpe Arch is the only thing at Leeds United which isn't broken. There is so much that needs fixing that it makes no sense at all to close it down, not least since we're tied in to a lease.
5.) Axeman
No good reason?
What about money I'm sure that's a good enough reason, also I've said it before and I will say it again MC said he wanted the training ground closer to ER back in March.
6.) I can't imagine closing it down and moving elsewhere would be financially beneficial though Andy. I don't know the full facts but I'd guess that we're we're tied to a lease at TA, in which case moving might prove costly.
As for money, if Cellino is serious about reaching the premiership then cost cutting is not the way to go. The club needs investment, especially in the playing squad.
The facilities at TA are outstanding and downgrading the players' training & rehabilitation environment, the one jewel in our tarnished crown, doesn't strike me as being a smart move.
7.) Axeman
I don't know about the lease, I was lead to believe it ran out a few years ago but the ER lease runs for another few years.
Again on the money front I think he has to meet the fair play rules or get docked points, fined money I'm not sure but the guy seems to know what he's doing and what he wants!
Maybe he will build another TA closer to ER I don't know.
23 May 2014 00:03:50
OK so most people don't want to hear what I post. However, up to now I have only posted fact. This list is based on good information - take it as you will - but as fans you need to start asking questions and stop believing whatever BS you are fed by a PR machine - "I make mistakes" "trust me" Blah Blah
McCormacK has a £5m release clause on his contract and has exercised it - he is heading to a southern club.
Celinio has paid £6M cash for Leeds out of a £35M selling price (for 75%) The rest is owed in installments to GFH, so GHF are a minority shareholder and biggest creditor (this is in the public domain so don't doubt it!)
Up to 2 weeks ago the academy teams were due to play Everton at ER as end of season festival. Leeds must honour the fixture as it is a FL commitment. Games were re-arranged as home / away with home at TA. TA pitches now so deteriorated that all games are all away.
End of season technical reviews for the elite junior players of Leeds United were tonight held in a ford transit van. What a laugh! I am sure they will attract lots of new talent next season.
TA will be abandoned if Celinio can escape contract - he cannot finance the £600K rental.
FL are considering rescinding Cat 2 status of Leeds academy as TA facility availability is in doubt. The junior teams have Beaten every Cat 1 academy team in the N of England this season.
All junior registrations for Leeds Academy will be in jeopardy if status is rescinded making players free agents (loss of £70K transfer for an U12! you can work out the rest). Approaches have been made.
Leeds junior academy status will be below all clubs in the area (basically centre of excellence). Huddersfield, Barnsley, Doncaster etc cannot believe their luck and are chasing our players
Call me a liar this time! In Celinio I have no faith
1.) If this is true this must be behind Harte's outburst and it's very serious. Fans won't like this. In truth though serious cost cutting must occur somewhere ..
{Ed003's Note - We have to be very careful what is said here, if people want to surmise make sure you only are doing that in the posts..and for gods sake stop mentioning Tw*tter.}
2.) $5mill get out clause. Probably $8 or $10mill!
Mc should get rid of ta and anything or one else draining the bank. Its how you save businesses yknow. Cutting costs not spending more. In a few years time when we back in prem we can build another training ground!
I think mc knows exactly what needs doing right now for the long term success of the club. Unlike recent pancakes! He will do whatever he has to, to get us back at the top. Regardless of what others think. Good luck to him!
3.) I'm sorry Realitycheck but what do you mean by 'most people don't want to hear what I post'? I don't look at every post on here but as far as I can see this is your first post. or are you someone else? Someone perhaps who has lost a bit of credibility and come back with a new email addy and log in? If you're not, chill out. it's Friday and a bank holiday to boot. woohoo
MM
4.) Interesting post Realitycheck. I have no idea to what extent this is true but I do think there is a great deal of naivety on here about Cellino and how much money he will be putting into the club. I fear he may have bitten off more than can chew, sadly.
His transfer spending record at Cagliari is negative rather than positive, mainly through developing then selling young players. That's not necessarily a bad thing, Wenger's consistently done it at Arsenal, but there are so many threads on here discussing which players we're going to buy, which former Premier League (expensive) manager we should recruit and so on. Get real people, we have no money.
Being asset rich and cash rich are two very different things and Cellino says himself that he isn't cash rich. Assets don't buy expensive players, pay off 1.5m managerial contracts and pay for new managers with PL experience.
Cash talks and there clearly isn't much of it around at ER, especially now the bank account and merchant services have all been frozen. More turmoil to come I fear.
5.) Then why have we refused 6M offer from cardiff at the end of transfer window when you stated there's only a 5m release clause in contract and we refused the sale that I don't get?
6.) If all the above is true then we are in big trouble!Although our youngsters going to the likes of Barnsley et al, I can't see myself, more likely prem.teams!Which was why the various rules regarding academies were introduced so they(PL Teams)could cherry pick the best players from lower down the food chain, with only having to pay pennies in compo.!
7.) So basically, what you're saying revolves around 2 major statements:
1) Cellino hasn't bought his 75% outright, he's paying in instalments to GFH.
2) The youth & training academy has been slashed due to finances.
In both cases I say good for Cellino. He's making shrewd financial decisions rather than arrogantly flashing cash around, getting nowhere, getting bored and disappearing. He's slashing the outgoings of the club. GOOD!
How many time have we heard about banks giving out ridiculous loans. It was these stupid financial decisions that assisted with the UK being in a massive recession. Ok, that's finance, not football, but are the 2 worlds really so different?
It's about time somebody started making sound financial "LONG TERM" decisions for the club.
Obviously it's a shame about the youth setup, but this is a rebuild people, not a sticking plaster!
He still VERY much has my vote, so stop whining and give the poor sod a chance!
Rant over, have a nice day.
8.) I find this hard to believe. This is basically stating that Cellino is scraping together loose change to try and run the club, which is the exact opposite of what he's done for 22 years with a Serie A club. That club has retained profitability for most of his rein, and he's working on the same for this (also said he injected £14mil before he bought it).
On another note, if Ross McCormack had a £5m release clause, surely when we were offered more than that in January (as has been said by Cellino and widely reported by media) then he could have forced through a move, which is something he was said to have tried.
This all looks like conjecture to me and I don't think it has any place here because it's trying to put fear into Leeds fans. Rumours and banter are always welcome but this just seems like a wind up mate.
9.) Realitycheck, its cellino
10.) This post is quite correct as far as I'm aware.
However only yesterday I've helped Massimo start negotiations to purchase TA and ER.
Massimo is only trying to reduce the asking price.
Jeff
11.) I have been looking at your past posts, you seem to have inside knowledge or your guessing. Does have similarities to old jeff! Time we'll tell if your right. ED003, what is your opinion on what's going on at moment? Are we doomed? Or is Cellino going to invest money?
{Ed003's Note - not got a clue sorry}
21 May 2016 11:58:46
Its nothing to do with Evans. It is what is happening with the Club? Have they a pre-season planned? Are there transfer targets lined up? Is there a manager planning the campaign ahead? You can't just turn up in August and wing it; unless you are MC and you own Leeds United that is?
I understand that there is truth to the Red Bull interest and that it is not for investment but a take-over. I expect that the FA would support the move and could apply pressure to MC under the fit and proper caveat effectively forcing his hand. The academy is already being looked at (including visits) by the PL due to low staffing levels and not hitting coaching contact time targets for the kids, so that funding (£500K) must be under threat and that will not please the FA Grassroots. MC's posturing over the purchase of ER also makes me suspicious (although I understand that he cannot raise the finance despite saying it was a trifle?). If he is in sales negotiations, why should he take on the risk of a capital investment when the incoming owners can carry that risk themselves? You won't be surprised to learn that I am very much in favour of MC moving on and getting a serious investor in that can support the infrastructure of the Club and support a real push for the PL and Europe.
The foundation is the way Leeds United reaches out to the community. Whilst it has many contributors, I think that you will find its biggest source of finance by far is LUFC. I am sure that the Ladies Team will not be the only project that will feel the bite.
The academy has brought in millions in junior player movement in the past few years. Taewo and Woods netted Leeds £5m compensation from Chelsea in 2006. Up to £1.5m for Luke Garbutt 2009. Others have gone to Man City (Leeds refuse to play them at youth level because of poaching activity), Real Madrid and plenty of other Premiership clubs and all will have attracted compensation. Two of this season's U15s have been called up for England along with another of our ex U15s who is now at Man City.
The original poster is probably correct, although I have not heard this directly. A lot of the coaching staff that had junior squads lined up for next season have been released, so I am not sure who is coaching the junior squads next season.
I have been told that MC wants the youth system to run on the same budget as Cagliari (€30K I was told?). That will cover about 8 part-time coaches? Each squad (u9 to u15) needs 2 coaches so that leaves us short by 6 coaches ignoring the goalkeeping coaches, and academy management and admin people and the kit etc. So the future for junior football doesn't look great.
Leeds United have all academy players under contract for next season, and some older ones for up to 3 seasons, so I do not believe that they will close next year as it would risk compensation claims from the players who are entitled to training as part of the contract. But all the noises I am hearing suggest that MC wants to go the same way as Watford. Sad thing is that Leeds have the best squads this side of the Pennines and in some age groups, arguably best in the country. Those players will leave with no compensation paid if the first poster is accurate.
Ok Guys - This is out there - the sofa in May gave a good breakdown of it. Some may argue that there are staged payments; however they are liabilities attracting interest - effectively loans.
MC has paid £6M for Leeds, through his family company Eleonora Sports Limited. Leeds United Holdings therefore owe ESL at least £6M plus whatever other money he will have put in to cover costs. It will not be clear until the accounts are published, but rest assured that there will probably be about 10% interest applied to that loan.
The Club is valued by GFH at £45M - therefore MC's purchase of 75% must be in the region of £33M. (Other interested parties wanted to pay in the region of £6M - maybe a better valuation?) There will be some agreed payments, but all outstanding payments will be attracting interest. So of the £33M selling price, £27M is secured against the 75% holding of ESL, and will be accruing interest. There is another £5M due by the end of this year, but payments beyond that are not clear. So effectively Leeds United holding's biggest creditor is GFH and as a bank they will be expecting interest on that loan (probably around 10%). Even when the payments to GFH are made, these will be in the form of a loan from ESL to LUH and the Club will pay interest on these.
I suspect that MC's original hold up in passing the fit a proper test was not about his court case - it was about clarity on where funds were coming from and being secured it the future - remember - it was about 'documents not being provided' - nothing about pending court cases.
MC has said that he is using family money. But he also said he was buying and investing when he got hold of the Club - I am still waiting.
Spin it whatever way you want - Leeds United now have an overhead liability to pay interest on MC's purchase of the Club of about £33M - say £3M pa, and he has saddled us with that liability. That really affects the Club when it comes to ffp. Of course ESL may be giving us the loans interest free -only annual accounts will tell us that.
29 Sep 2016 09:06:51
I cannot believe that supporters are blaming the press for exposing the filthy greedy grubby activities of our corrupt owner. let's spell it out. What Cellino is saying is that if you are an owner of Leeds United, then you, as a shareholder, can take 100% cash generated from the sale of players without it going through the club's books and accounts. The rules state that this money should go into the Club and shareholders should take any money out through a dividend, just to make it all transparent and above board. So when you wonder how come money seems to disappear when players are sold and the Club's finances don't seem to improve, you now know at least one of the reasons why. You may say that it is OK and everyone should leave Cellino alone to get on with it; I say it is not OK and they should stick him in jail to rot. Stop believing Cellino is some sort of charitable saviour. He is a spiv and a leech and I hope we can rid ourselves of him in the very near future. There is a reason the press targeted the individuals they did in that operation, and it is nothing to do with a vendetta against Leeds United.
22 Jun 2016 15:48:48
Lets start a list:
How do you attack a silent minority share holder?
MC bought the Club with binding ties to GFH. Its in his power to sort them out; but he won't take the hit and do it.
MC paid an over-inflated price for the Club without due diligence and tied it to GFH. (He even borrowed the money from GFH! ) That's why he'd have to take a loss to sell it.
MC has dismantled the Club and academy, left it languishing in mid table and made it a laughing stock; GFH had no real input to the farce of the last 3 seasons.
MC has no sentimental attachment to Leeds. He tried to buy Crystal Palace and West Ham before Leeds; he was just desperate to get a Club in the premiership and it is proving much harder than the numpty realised.
I appreciate the positivity that's about at the moment, but dread when the next knee jerk emotional decision will spin us off into MC's alternate universe again.
I'd love owners with the vision, plan and resource to propel Leeds to the heights they deserve. I do not believe that MC can do that; GFH are just a distraction. Therefore the focus should remain time to go Massimo, just for when he slips up again!
10 Jun 2016 16:08:45
Of course I seem to recall the same discussion around Lennon vs Beckham back in the day. My view is there was no contest then, Beckham was less exciting to watch, but a much better footballer and there is none now, Rooney has to be in the first 11. Admittedly he has not hit his best form this season, but he is still the 5th highest scorer in the Euro's qualifying stats and the team qualified at a canter. If the team clicks, Rooney can make the difference.
01 Jun 2016 13:29:02
Not sure. He took a team of players he was familiar with and made them successful in a club that was stable with infrastructure in place. When he had to move that team on and regenerate it he was not so successful. I am not sure how much support he will get from MC and he needs to develop from scratch with no real scouting structure or experienced staff in the picture and no plan evident for next week never mind next season. Can he bring anyone with him to support him in moving forward? I think it is a gamble for him but I hope he can do it! I do think that he's a better bet than some names I have seen banded about.
27 May 2016 17:06:41
I didn't know you were so well informed in Cucurbitaceae George. Glad I've found a fellow enthusiast.