Ben Fry: Well, we’ll start by looking back on Saturday. A much-needed win and I suppose a clean sheet as well, you must be equally as delighted with both?
Ken Bates: Well what was nice was that the forwards had an off day for a change and they had their near misses without scoring but when all else fails, Somma pops up with a goal and the most important thing was we had a clean sheet. So that’s something that was very welcome and of course the result of the weekend games are that we are still three points behind second place. It’s a very tight competition and very exciting, which of course, is reflected in the gates.
BF: You mentioned Davide Somma, you must be delighted with the contribution he has made this season – 11 goals in 11 starts.
KB: I have just come back from South Africa as you know and he’s beginning to be talked about in South Africa because they are desperate for heroes overseas. And of course, he is theirs at the moment and long may it continue both for him and for the many, many people in South Africa to whom he’s a hero.
BF: And you mentioned how tight it is getting in the Championship, do you see things any differently now? I know you said at this stage you thought things would become a little bit clearer. Is that the situation?
KB: Well there are now six clubs that are now creeping away. I think it’s four or five points difference between sixth and seventh, which is a nice gap. Though of course, there are one or two games in hand but these are tending to equal themselves out. So as I say, we are sixth at the moment but there’s only three points between us and second. It should make for some very exciting games between now and the end of the season. It’s very, very close. I think it’s even closer this year than it was last year in League One.
BF: Do you think that’s partly because of the quality of sides that came down from the Premier League weren’t as strong as traditionally and therefore it’s almost anybody’s to take?
KB: Well I think we’re amazed aren’t we that the club’s that get relegated, who I had in my mind as front-runners, simply aren’t. In fact, with the exception of ourselves I suppose you could say, not unkindly, that the majority of teams in the play-offs at the moment are the unfashionable clubs in the league. What you see as the established giants are at the other end of the table, with Preston being the outstanding surprise and disappointment.
BF: Now, the emergency loan window opened this week. It does include a 93-day rule which means any player that came on loan now wouldn’t actually be available if Leeds United were involved in the play-offs. Do you think that’s a fault in the system , the fact that you do have to wait to try make sure the 93 days carry you through until the end of May?
KB: No I don’t think so. I think that’s maybe why you find we don’t start signing players until next week. But we’ll see how it goes. It’s Simon’s job to judge the water and decide what he wants and it will be Simon’s decision. We will back him for whatever he wants.
BF: Now yesterday Jonny Howson got a run-out with the England Under-21s in Italy. He played the last 20 minutes of the second half. You must be delighted for him and also delighted that another academy product has had international recognition?
KB: I’m very pleased for him and I’m very pleased for the club. He’s a lovely boy, homegrown, loves Leeds and of course is the team captain at the moment. He’s having a good season. I’m very pleased for him and I’m sure everybody else is. And this week of course we have been interviewing candidates for the vacancy for Academy Director, which hopefully means we’ll be able to appoint somebody sooner rather than later. Susannah did apply but she was told by both manager and Shaun Harvey that she was over-qualified. If fact, she was warned that she was over-qualified for everything so please don’t apply for anything else either.
BF: Well taking Susannah’s application apart, are you pleased with the standard of
candidates?
KB: I’m not really familiar with many of the names, but I’m entirely content to allowing Gwyn Williams, Shaun’s and Simon’s assessment. We had quite a lot of applications and they chose eight each, to cut it down to 24 but then what was interesting was that some of the names appeared on all three lists. So they were obviously regarded as prime candidates. It’s interesting now that the youth team have now returned to winning ways. At one time they were stuck at the foot of the table but at least they’re climbing off that now. We have make sure we have the right person in to look after our future and that’s what we’ll be doing this week.
BF: When we spoke last week, you talked about the need for Premier League clubs to respect the Football League when it comes to young players and there was a meeting taking place to try thrash this out this week. Has there been any outcome?
KB: No, it wasn’t very satisfactory. Basically, the big clubs rejected it. At the moment, first of all they just want to pay for the player they take but the fact of the matter is, if you take a small club, Rochdale for example, maybe they have 10-15 kids in their centre of excellence and one comes through because that’s the average, it’s exceptional if there is more than one, and then a Premiership club likes him and takes him of them unfairly, sometimes illegally, and then they offer a pittance, say £50,000 for the player. But Rochdale, hard up as they are, may spend £200,000 a year on their academy, some clubs spend far more. The Premiership clubs steal the one good player of that year, the rest don’t make it but they all cost the same so Rochdale has now lost money in producing that youth player. They can’t afford to do it. Premiership clubs paying up to £50million for a player, you’d think they’d realise it’s in their own interests to invest in the future further down the food chain, which is quite ridiculous. Leeds have been aggressive and are fighting their corner. You may remember for example, that Manchester City took two of our players and offered us £70,000. We fought them and got £700,000. Everton took one, offered £200,000, we got £700,000 plus add-ons taking it to £1.3million. And finally, probably the most notorious case of all, was when Chelsea took Taiwo and Woods and offered us £200,000, we eventually got £4m. Now the Football League clubs spend about £40m a year on youth development, they can’t afford to do that to subsidise the Premier League. And the Premier League are only being stupid and greedy and in some cases thieving but it’s also very short-sighted because football is like a pyramid. All the little clubs, Championship, Leagues One and Two and even the Conference are doing in fact, their work for them. So they are crazy, short changing us. It’s a real battle and I do know in fact, having seen our submission to the inquiry that is taking place at the select committee into the Governance of Football that the Football League have made a very strong case for that to change. The other thing they want to ban, the Premier League, is the 90-minute rule. It used to be that you could only sign a player that lives within 90 minutes of the ground or training ground. They want to abolish that, which means that the Premiership’s big clubs will be able to scavenge throughout the country, which again isn’t fair. The trouble is of course there is a certain type of parent who see their son as a way to instant riches instead of thinking of their long-term future of the boy. Many kids are better off staying at their home club and learning and playing. They are just going to the abyss of a Premiership club and never being seen again. I mention the £4m for Taiwo and Woods – well where are they? We got £500,000 for Gordon and he has been loaned out to Scunthorpe. And so it goes on. I wonder where those two players would be today if they had stayed at Leeds. Anyway, time will tell.
BF: I was going to ask you your thoughts on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee Investigation into Football. I suppose then, you would welcome government intervention if in fact if did try solve this problem with academies?
KB: Well, I’m a bit wary of this inquiry because first of all, they have made three mistakes. We’ve had: Lord Triesman, I don’t know what his background is and I don’t know why he’s a Lord, he didn’t do very much at the FA. Then we’ve had a Civil Servant who walked out after six months or so because he wasn’t getting his own way whereas of course Civil Servants are used to getting their own way. Then of course, we’ve had Lord Mawhinney who now is our President but the less to say about him and 15 points the better. Then Geoff Hoon, the guy who was fiddling expenses, he was a former minister and angling for the job of chairman. The problem is, in my experience in football, with meeting other chairmen is that so many of them are in it for the wrong reasons. They like turning up at Wembley and making sure they get the best seat but since they don’t know anything about football, I don’t know what they have got to offer and I’m not sure what the government can deduce other than possible one or two regulations and then forget it. The idea of a permanent regulator would be a disaster. Maybe I’ve got a better idea, maybe the Football Association, the Premier League and the Football League should set up a independent inquiry into the governance of Britain. Maybe the country should regulated by the Premier League and at least then the country would be making money and wouldn’t have to be paying so many high taxes.
BF: I have got a list of what the inquiry is seeking to establish. I’ll read out the questions and see if any of these areas you would like looking at. Should football clubs in the United Kingdom be treated differently from other commercial organisations?
KB: That’s a very vague question isn’t it? But I suppose the answer would be no.
BF: The next one: are football governance rules in England and Wales and the governing bodies that set and apply them fit for purpose?
KB: Well, again, you see, they are being specifically vague. I think they could debate about anything and if they are not then the clubs themselves should put things right.
BF: Is there too much debt in the professional game?
KB: Well this I think was what Lord Triesman’s nadir when he made a speech at Stamford Bridge at a conference when he stated it was a disgrace that football club’s debts we £3billion or something or £2bn. That speech had obviously been written for him by a professional speech writer and in turn he didn’t do bugger all about it and it was totally in accurate. There are two kinds of debts. There’s what you might call the Ridsdale debt, which is bad, where money is just borrowed against assets and spent like water on players, so the club goes bust. Or there’s what you might call Arsenal debts where they have built a brand new 60,000 seater stadium, borrowed money by getting a mortgage which is obviously more debt but are paying it down on a regular basis. Meanwhile they have increased their capacity by 50%, they provide much better facilities for their supporters, and it showed for example when we played them that our share of the gate was £907,000. That’s what I’d call good debt. Now if we take all the members of the Select Committee – how many of them have got houses or apartments, some of course have got two without a mortgage, so that’s good debt. Most people in the country who own a house have got a mortgage, that’s good debt. People who have got loads of credit cards and are over the limit and are making financial repayments – that’s bad debt. So it’s too simplistic to say they have got too much debt.
BF: And the final one… What are the pros and cons of the supporter trust shareholding model?
KB: Well, at the end of the day, I don’t know any club where it has been a success in the higher echelons. The trouble is, all the supporters I have met, and I have met a few over the years, at the end of the day they want to win matches and buy players. And I don’t think that a representative body should have a seat on a football club. It has nothing to offer. I think they have got one at the FA. He’s on his own and doesn’t have a particularly great time because most of his ideas are potty anyway. The present system hasn’t done badly for the last 100-odd years. Any change you want, evolution not revolution. It’s only one letter, R, and it takes a little longer.
BF: And finally today, I suppose the most important question of the week, are you a Rod Stewart fan?
KB: I always have been yes. So I’m looking forward to him coming to Elland Road on June 3. Do you know, we announced it last Thursday, we put the tickets on sale on Monday morning and as of last night we had sold 5,500 tickets. Interestingly, the most expensive seats are going first. We are putting seats on the pitch, the stage will be in front of the South Stand, and it’s going to be a great day.
BF: And there are some hospitality packages as well and one section of those is already sold out so there seems to be a real appetite to see Rod strutting his stuff.
KB: The whole thing is going well. It means Elland Road will be open a little longer. Come back to what we have always said, we must use Elland Road for things other than just football. The other great thing is that, having got all the stages up, we’re now looking for two or three more acts to follow Rod Stewart which means it could turn into a festival of music which will be great, so watch this space.
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