By Daniel Feliciano

8th Mar, 2023 | 6:40pm

Leeds United's whole ownership situation hinges on Premier League survival - Simon Jordan

Simon Jordan believes Leeds United’s entire ownership hinges on Premier League survival this season, with the 49ers Enterprises looking to take the club over.

The Whites are currently owned by Andrea Radrizzani, but American investors 49ers Enterprises are due to complete a full takeover of the club on July 1st 2023 should they avoid relegation.

Now Jordan has suggested that the whole deal could potentially collapse if Leeds are relegated from the Premier League this season, as they currently sit just above the drop zone on goal difference alone with 13 games remaining this season.

“The fact is, relegation is a cataclysmic fall from grace. And for this lot, they’ll feel like turkeys in mid-December,” he wrote in his Mail+ column (8 March).

“Leicester are former champions, West Ham splashed out £160m on transfers last summer, Forest spent a vast amount of cash buying more players than you can shake a stick at, Leeds United’s whole potential ownership hinges on whether they stay in the Premier League, Everton have an owner who spent half a billion quid to get precisely nowhere and is now staring down the barrel with a new stadium on the horizon and then there’s Southampton and Bournemouth with new ownership.”

Problem

Andrea Radrizzani has already publicly admitted that he doesn’t have the cash required to take Leeds to where the club need and want to be.

A sale has become public knowledge, with the 49ers Enterprises already involved in the club’s runnings and a takeover expected to be pretty seamless to complete.

But if the club drop into the Championship this summer after a poor season, then the valuation of the club would obviously drop and any deal that was in place would likely become void.

It would need a new negotiation and a new plan, and that’s if the 49ers Enterprises were still interested in a full takeover knowing that the plan they have for the club will be delayed by several years at least.

It’s something that the club simply can’t afford to happen right now, with the position of the squad and the financial situation, so Javi Gracia and the players need to get their act together ASAP.

In other Leeds news, trio of first-team players set for return from injury against Brighton.

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