Danny Mills ⭑ From A-Z since '92

This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.

There's a strong case for standing Seth Johnson down, as the symbol of all that went wrong at Peter Ridsdale's Leeds United, and replacing him with Danny Mills.

Johnson, in the end, was just one of the last measures added to an already poisoned cocktail. Bought quite unnecessarily for £7m from Derby County in October 2001, a year before the Elland Road fire-sales began, injuries prevented him becoming the player he should have been. Johnson has steadfastly corrected the legend that chairman Ridsdale argued himself into offering extortionate wages. A normal — lucrative — deal was done with Johnson's agent, that ultimately trapped Johnson when Ken Bates realised more appearances would trigger more payments to his former club. Seth Johnson didn't do much right but that doesn't mean he did much wrong.

Danny Mills' was a longer story. He arrived for £4.5m in June 1999 and, significantly, was the second player Leeds bought using a 'leaseback' arrangement with Registered European Football Finance Ltd. REFF paid the transfer fee up front, while Leeds paid up front fees to insure the risk then repaid the transfer fee in stages to REFF, plus high rates of interest. Eirik Bakke was the first player bought this way, then Mills, Michael Duberry, Michael Bridges, Dominic Matteo, Olivier Dacourt and Mark Viduka.

As United's financial problems tightened around them, the deals were restructured with REFF. Now, half the transfer fee was being paid back to REFF over the player's contract, the remainder in a lump sum at the end of the contract or when the player was sold. On top of the interest Leeds were paying on the transfers, this was a disastrous miscalculation. When Leeds needed to sell players to raise money, the offers were lower than the lump sums the club still owed to REFF. If Leeds accepted £2m for a player, they might have to give £3m to REFF — money the club, by 2003, didn't have.