How much of Leeds debt is due to transfer fees? It seems like I see that statement tossed around a lot in the press. Yet the club lost nearly 50 million pounds last year alone. How much money in transfer fees + fees for loans was spent then? I can see how transfer fees would be part of the problem. Nevertheless, it seems that wages and overall operations have been much more of an issue. Does anyone have more details on where all this money is going?
Pretty much all of the debt is from transfer fees. Peter Ridsdale tried to "Live the dream" and brought out loans to bring in players with big-time transfer costs. The money would theoretically be made up in the Champions League. After we failed to qualify there was a huge chunk of money missing.
And he kept on giving O'Leary money which he never had until it was clear they weren't going to get back into Champs League, and the debts became public - sale of Rio.
But that doesn't make sense to me. If the club lost 50 million pounds last year, that means they spent 50 million pounds more than they had. So it would stand to reason that someone or some bank had to LOAN that money to the club. It didn't just appear out of thin air, right? So wouldn't it mean that 50 million pounds of Leeds' total debt was from last year, correct? And if that's the case, that would be over 1/2 of their total debt, correct? And they didn't make any big transfer signings last year. So is most of their debt really from transfers which makes for a sexy story since it's all about trying to buy success and failing? Or is most of the debt from poor day to day operations from everything from player wages to back office staff to coaches? Thanks!