New models at a new Elland Road
When the old West Stand goes down, almost 70 years of tradition will go with it. Meanwhile Leeds are going up, to the Premier League, where everyone is looking for something new. And expensive.
There was no better time for Leeds United to make announcements than the last few weeks, when promotion was quickly followed by the Championship title. Some of this has been luck. The Bank Holiday parade may have hit different if it was hailing the runners up. Some of it has been by design, such as Paraag Marathe's carefully unguarded comments on an open top bus during that parade. A football club's owner can't do better with his public than, at the right time, dropping the word 'fuck'.
"I don't think anyone realised, this wasn’t fucking easy," Marathe said, not quite going full Ampadu as the bus mooched through the city centre. "I hope I never forget this moment. I want to live in this moment as much as I can," he went on. "We are going to have some difficulties, but we are going to get where we want to go and we are going to be one of the best clubs in all of Europe." As the streets filled with blue and yellow smoke and we'd all convinced ourselves that we wanted to hear KC & The Sunshine Band, this was bound to land very well with the fans.
Even in a more sober moment Marathe was no less bullish, telling the FT and local press exactly what fans want to hear about transfers. "Whatever (PSR rules) will let us spend, we’ll spend," he said. "I can comfortably say that we are going to spend the very last penny that we can." He said that investment from the 49ers Enterprises ownership group will be found, "to go full tilt for the next three years". These lines will definitely not be used against Marathe when the transfer deadline comes around if our new Premier League ready winger is Jack Harrison.
Leeds United's Championship winning season, game by game, as written at Leedsista.com.
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The mood of approachable professionalism continued at the council's meeting to discuss plans for redeveloping Elland Road, where the local councillors were charmed by Morrie Eisenberg, United's Chief Business Officer, the former Microsoft, Tesla and San Francisco 49ers executive. "This is a pretty new environment for me, so hang in there with me," he chuckled as he fumbled around with the meeting room's microphones. "Before I got up here, they said I just had to talk for about five seconds at the beginning, and that was it," he joked, affable as you like, when the councillors started asking their questions. "So I'm definitely going to have a chat with my team about that one later!" He kept up a theme of trying to respect council protocol: "Should I go next? Is that okay? Trying to stay out of trouble here. Thanks." Asked about community involvement, he introduced former councillor Lucinda Yeadon, who is working on the public consultations, because, "One of the things that we, as an ownership group, I think are pretty good about, is we know what we know, and we know what we're good at, and we know what we don't know," and Yeadon was better placed to answer. How humble. And how like Paraag Marathe, when he told journalists that Red Bull were useful partners for Leeds because, "I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know (so) Red Bull is going to be another esteemed partner I can lean on when the time is right."
Eisenberg presented himself and 49ers Enterprises to the council hardly like an investment group at all, but just a bunch of humble guys trying to build a multi-million pound stadium for the community. "We say it takes an unusual type of person to want to buy a football club, and one of the things with this group is really a desire to bring so much back to the city of Leeds. I mean, it really is." Just your average bunch of weirdos who bought their local team, I guess, from Will Ferrell to Paris Hilton! "I mean, our largest thing, you know, a lot of — I don't want to go investor by investor — but a lot of our investors have ties to Leeds that predate me being born." Like Will Ferrell and Paris Hilton?
The one time he came close to breaching protocol, jumping in on the mic with an interruption, was to say thank you to the council. "I want to say thanks for all your support on the parade," he said. "So that was an example of us working well together, I think. That was a partnership with the city and the club and we thought that went over really well, all things considered. So thank you very much for your support of the club and thanks to all of you." That, perhaps, was laying the groundwork for a later answer about car parking and public transport, likely the biggest issues in the coming planning application, which Eisenberg was keen to make sure isn't all put on the club.