MOT View: Radrizzani under the spotlight as Leeds set for major financial announcement
Andrea Radrizzani’s leadership at Leeds United is set to go under the spotlight in the next few days as the club accounts for the 18/19 season are announced.
Leeds have done their bit, with Companies House acknowledging notice of the accounts which will be available for public scrutiny in five days.
The accounts are up to and including June 2019 and take in Marcelo Bielsa’s first season at Elland Road and the ultimately doomed bid for promotion.
It won’t take into account player purchases and sales from last summer, with Kemar Roofe moving to Anderlecht in August.
Turnover is expected to be up from the £40,737,293 in the 17/18 accounts, although many Leeds fans are expecting bigger losses to be posted.
Radrizzani himself has said that the level of wages at the club is “unsustainable” in the Championship and revealed the extent of the current wage bill in an interview in the Times.
“Bielsa and his staff cost £6 million [a year], we bought many other players and I think we have a squad to be promoted,” Radrizzani said. “It’s financially not sustainable to keep this level of salary which is now over £30 million, probably £33 million with Marcelo and closer to £40 million with the coaches.”
Given that we’d expect losses between £10m-£15m and the accounts will highlight the importance of winning promotion this season.
Unfortunately, that battle isn’t just taking place on the football pitch this season.
Hopefully, it will show more cynical fans the difficulty of running a team at promotion level in the Championship. We think Radrizzani has done a great job and deserves more praise than he gets.
In other Leeds United news, ‘Get in’, ‘Yesss’, ‘Can’t wait’ – These Leeds fans thrilled by official EFL Twitter message