Phil Hay shares ‘EFL conspiracy’ verdict amid Leeds United takeover twist
Leeds United are still waiting for the EFL to approve the 49ers Enterprises’ takeover of the club despite all deals being agreed between them and Andrea Radrizzani.
While the Whites are awaiting approval, the EFL have changed the rules on announcing takeovers, saying that clubs can no longer do that until the league has given the green light [LeedsLive].
Leeds would have fallen afoul of this rule change had it been implemented before they announced the 49ers’ takeover was all complete barring EFL approval in June.
The Athletic journalist Phil Hay has been asked if the EFL have made the change to stop clubs passing the buck onto them but he didn’t really want to answer that question amid fears of bringing up old conspiracy theories about the organisation.
Speaking on The Square Ball podcast on Friday (14 July, 20m16s on YouTube), host Dan Moylan asked Hay: “Is it to take the heat off them?”
Hay hesitates to reply, saying: “It’s a fair question.”
Moylan replied: “Are you going to answer it, or…?”
Hay then laughed: “I’ll go down the EFL conspiracy route yet again.” Answering the question, finally, The Athletic journalist said: “Possibly. To use Leeds as a relevant example, they have thrown the takeover on 9 June, at the same time Leeds are saying, ‘we can also do with this being processed as quickly as possible because time’s ticking, transfer window’s opening, we need a head coach and everything else’.
“And the EFL might, and I think fairly, say in response, ‘yes but the process is the process so it takes as long as it takes’.”
Here we go again
It’s an age-old conspiracy theory about Leeds, one that a lot of fans believed as their club struggled to get out of the Championship for almost two decades.
Leeds are a massive club so the idea was that due to the increased revenue of having Leeds in the EFL, they would do everything in their power to keep them in that division.
It’s a bit farfetched because ultimately, there are a lot of big clubs at this level nowadays.
Admittedly, none of them are as big as Leeds but the Championship is stacked with enough high-profile, historic clubs to mean the loss of Leeds wouldn’t have as big an impact financially on the EFL.
But it’s beside the point, anyway.
The EFL are obviously doing this to stop clubs passing the buck onto them and you can understand it.
Right now, Leeds fans are impatiently waiting for the EFL’s approval of this takeover.
It’s something that does take time and cannot be rushed simply because Radrizzani and the 49ers didn’t bother drawing up a deal before relegation from the Premier League.
In other Leeds United news, a high-profile manager has shared a transfer admission about his player who the Whites want to sign.