Ownership

It was on there this morning Steve?

Leeds United: EFL approves £170m takeover by 49ers Enterprises - BBC Sport

Club statement out now:

Today, Leeds United Football Club can announce that the EFL has approved the sale of the Club to 49ers Enterprises, paving the way for the immediate transition of ownership.

Paraag Marathe, previously Vice Chairman and Board member of the Club, will take over as Leeds United Chairman. In this role, Marathe will oversee all aspects of the Club, including football and business operations, and drive the strategy to fight for promotion back to the Premier League in the 2023-2024 season. Marathe takes over from Andrea Radrizzani, who has been majority owner of Leeds United since 2017. Angus Kinnear, CEO of Leeds United and Board member, will remain in his current position, and continue to direct the Club’s day-to-day operations. Rudy Cline-Thomas,Founder and Managing Partner of MASTRY, will join the Board as Co-Owner and Vice Chairman of the Club.

“This is an important moment for Leeds United and we are already hard at work,” said Marathe. “This transition is a necessary reset to chart a new course for the Club. We have already appointed a highly-respected First Team Manager with a track record of success, and we are confident Leeds will field a competitive squad to contend for promotion next season. It’s a privilege to carry this torch as I know we have a responsibility to ensure this Club makes our staff, players, supporters, and the Leeds and Yorkshire communities proud."

Cline-Thomas added, "With my family hailing from Leeds, it's an honour to be able to uplift this incredible community. This is more than just an opportunity, it's a personal mission. The chance to reinvigorate the cherished Leeds culture, to create a platform that attracts the world's finest players, and build a truly global brand that celebrates diversity, is a prospect that thrills me.”

49ers Enterprises, led by Marathe and 49ers CEO Jed York, has steadily supported and increased its investment in Leeds United over the past five years. Moving forward, the group will look to enhance all aspects of the Club both on and off the pitch. Marathe, Kinnear, and the Club recently announced the appointment of Daniel Farke as First Team Manager. The Club's leadership has also been laying the groundwork to build a successful squad by retaining key players from last season’s team as well as bringing in new talent.

“49ers Enterprises is bringing fresh leadership, management, and a commitment to investment, which I’m confident will meet our ambition to compete for promotion and remain in the top flight as an established Premier League Club,” said Kinnear. “I know Paraag, Rudy and 49ers Enterprises will keep supporters central to their plans during their custodianship and I am excited to work in realising the true potential of this great club.”

Radrizzani said, “It has been an honour to guide Leeds United over the last six years and to spend so much time with the best fanbase in the world. 49ers Enterprises have been fantastic partners for years and I'm confident they will take Leeds to the next level.”

For more information about Paraag Marathe and Rudy Cline-Thomas, their bios can be found on the Leeds Website.

About 49ers Enterprises

49ers Enterprises is the strategic arm of the San Francisco 49ers focused on investments in teams, leagues and other sports properties. 49ers Enterprises is the full owner of Leeds United Football Club. The group is led by President Paraag Marathe and was formed to expand the excellence of the 49ers into other ventures and to capitalize on the brand’s respected reputation across the sports world. The work of 49ers Enterprises is informed by the team's industry-leading expertise in sporting operations, as well as marketing, sponsorships, merchandising, retail, and business development.

TFFT

If we wanted a NBA player or former player then we should have hit shaq up as he is loaded.

I think exactly the same. Everything is being sorted behind the scenes at LUFC, this is down to Sharon and Tracey in the admin offcie at the EFL being in Majorca till next week (probably).

It's only really going to be an issue if it drags much beyond 1 July when the transfers begin and more importantly for the start of pre-season. Assuming a manager has been appointed but not announced, Hammond will already have transfer targets and had discussions with agents about which players want to stay and which players want to leave.

The sale has only happened in the last few weeks, these things take time to play out. There's no conspiracy and to put it in context, Radz is inthe same position with Sampdoria.

Odd but that's me Stevethemouse

It is just the EFL needing to ratify the takeover. Should be a formality. Then things can progress. I am sure 49ers already have the manager in place and also a DoF, even if we have to wait a few months for his notice to be served at Norwich.

I also expect us to have spoken with some players about coming to Leeds and the new manager will have had input.

Hope so BB. We need a lot of things to fall into place quickly if we're going to have a serious go at promotion.

I agree it has to be that They had to check out 60 investors which I presume is unusual but no doubt the EFL have dragged their heels on purpose to hinder any chance of us preparing well for the new season

I think that is a fair summary. He trusted Orta too much and was too pally with him which ultimately cost us our place. He also did himself no favours bartering with ER. He won't be welcomed back warmly which he would have been if he has sold 1 or preferably 2 years ago.

That seems tk be confirmed. Personally, I’m glass half empty and have no reason to have any affection for our American overlords whose involvement so far has been somewhat underwhelming.

The blatantly obvious thing to prioritise is Elland Road.

We have a waiting list for tickets and every game with just 36700 is a waste of opportunity.

If the club could house 55000 then the revenues would secure the long term future of the club in the EPL and ensure financial safety.

Give a man a fish you feed him for a day, give him a rod and you feed him for life.

Translation:

Give a club a cash injection to the first team and have a couple of good seasons then fail, give a club a bigger base revenue and you get to behave like the the EPL top 6 ongoing.

As long as they speak and act through one and the same voice, it should be OK.

But 60 individuals investors... certainly could complicate things.

Suppose/hope that a large number of them were already connected with "the 49rs" ownership of 44% of the club.

Not sure how good things worked under Radz and the "the 49rs" last season, did Radz make/take all the difficult and important decisions?

Did he alone cough up the money for running the club (incl. transfers) or did the 49rs pay their part of it (44%)?

Need to make sure all work together to achieve our goals.

I don't know what went on behind the scenes, but I feel I knew where I stood with AR - whereas since the 49ers bought into the club, we narrowly avoided relegation, then we were relegated. And the end game wasn't pretty.

Yep, no argument there.

Murky stuff and my best understanding:

The 49ers NFL franchise are 90% owned by the York family. We are being bought out by the 49ers Enterprise Investment Vehicle which is partly their money, but Peter Lowy is also an investor in that arm of the wider 49ers empire - it appears other names also have minor stakes, like the NBA guy.

It is their finance that will own us in the main, Praag Marathe is the York's long standing man in the field - and why he's been key in assessing the LUFC division of the business.

Perhaps the more important question is "why are they interested in us?"

The 49ers are one of the top 5 richest franchises in the NFL - and have had success under the York ownership, but the NFL is in a saturated market. It's only big bucks in the USA even though they are trying to migrate it to Europe now.

"Soccer" is the biggest game in the world

The EPL is the biggest league in the biggest game in the world.

The 49ers are not alone in realising that branching out their business models from NFL into Soccer makes sense - cross pollinate good practice, get worldwide exposure, ultimately find another avenue for making money.

Remember folks, investment implies a return in the end - the 49ers always make a profit from NFL so they are investing here rather like we invest in our pensions.

How much is Peter lowy involved? Is it just him or is his family or more importantly his father also involved. Only ask as his father knows his stuff when it comes to football business.

A second gen NBA player. Father and son gifted in the athletic department.

One of our Investors

As part owners for the previous couple of years, they could already have offered to stump up all that money. But they didnt.

I'm very much glass half empty when it comes to the 49ers. Grass is greener ....

Fair enough, but depending on the league you're in, about every other owner will have to stump up that kind of money to keep the club a float. Being realistic turnover is still less than £200M.

The pressure you talk of is largely of their own making and certainly the way the owner conducted himself lately does hardly cover him in any glory.

So by the looks of it, he's quickly spending a lot of the credit he build over time. Still, he certainly has the right to look afer himself and take a healty profit on his investment.

And correct, the club's assets are "his" but you can hardly pretent to have the best interest of the club at heart or declare yourself custodian of the club and then act/sound very differently.

Af for being fussed about who actually owns the club, at first glance you're correct. But, ultimately who decides and pays whoever is gonna be the next coach/manager, the next Dof and who will sign/sell the players?

dan it looks like a lot of investors including that Australia guy you mentioned are in this under the umbrella of the 49’s

My take is it just a small sub company who is allowed to operate under the 49ers as it's parent company. This means not real cash as it is a investment firm...

Concerned with the way Radz has acted lately.

Most of his focus was or at least seemed to be with taking over Sampdoria. Not a word in the last match day program by Radz or Kinnear,

His absence at the last game(s) also speaks volumes.

When he (by way in name of his Aser company) finally came out with some sort of a statement, it again mentioned the hard/good work that has been done in past, he talked very little about the way forward and only half hearted admitted that (perhaps) mistakes were made → no shxt!?

Are the Americans to blame? For sure they were certainly part of the decision making and from where we're standing it looks like they agreed with those (decisions).

But I feel most of the mistakes/poor decisions made were (in general) football related.

Not sure we can blame them for mostly signing the wrong type of players.

We all know buying players from the Premiership is very expensive but we still payed very big amounts (over the top?) of money for unproven players.

There were plenty of decent players from the Premiership available on loan/others out of contract. For whatever reasons we didn't never seemed to consider those kind of players.

Think our continued obsession to sign wingers/lightweight players, with real problems being overlooked → a lack of pace/strength in defence, not having enough creativity in midfield, + not having a goalscoring nr. 9 (a problem we "fixed" by signing another winger), does point the finger in a different direction.