When Leeds Met sport... it was a passion that cost millions

At the heart of the university's vision, directed by controversial former vice chancellor Simon Lee, was a major re-branding exercise in which the name Carnegie would play a very prominent role.

The former Carnegie College had enjoyed a reputation for excellence in PE teaching.

It became part of Leeds Met when it was taken over by the then Leeds Polytechnic in the 1970s.

Driven forward by Mr Lee, the university embarked on a spree of sponsorship deals which splashed millions of pounds on professional rugby league, rugby union and cricket in a bid to establish the Carnegie brand name far and wide.

The ultimate plan was to rename the entire university Leeds Carnegie but having approved the name change, governors changed their minds in the wake of Mr Lee's sudden departure in January last year.

The move would have cost 500,000 to implement but a fear Carnegie might become synonymous with an extravagant spending regime – and the reign of the former vice chancellor – was as great an influence as cost.

The university continues to point to the benefits of spending big on sporting partnerships in terms of marketing and an increase in student numbers.

But since Mr Lee's departure, Leeds Met has already expensively extricated itself from one of the deals and is understood to be seeking to find an exit from at least one more – if it can reach agreement with the sport involved.

And the question of whether the spending represents value for very

large amounts of public money will not go away.

Most remarkable remains the 10m a publicly-funded university has pledged in support of Leeds' professional rugby union club. As the Yorkshire Post previously revealed, Mr Lee kept the 2007 agreement to take control of the then Leeds Tykes from governors before it was presented as a fait accompli and rubber stamped.

After funding losses of 2m in the first two years of a 10-year agreement, the university last year decided to relinquish control of the newly-named Leeds Carnegie but could only do so by agreeing to pay 1m a year for the next eight years.

Leeds Met has also committed 5.7m to rugby league's showpiece event, the Challenge Cup. The six-year deal runs until 2012 though if the potential involvement of another sponsor offers a way out before then the university is expected to take it.

A further 5m is going towards sponsoring the Headingley Carnegie rugby ground, home of both Leeds Carnegie and the city's successful rugby league team, Leeds Rhinos. The money also pays for one or two extras, including a small brand placement for Carnegie on the shoulder of the Rhinos' team shirt. Leeds Met is currently tied-in to a 15-year deal which runs to 2020.

The right to call the cricket ground Headingley Carnegie will cost Leeds Met 600,000 under a 10-year deal that runs to 2015; another 370,000 is being spent on a five-year deal, which ends in 2012, to name the county's one-day side Yorkshire Carnegie.

But Leeds Met's major contribution to Yorkshire cricket has been the 14m it is spending on helping the club build a new pavilion at Headingley. The whole structure will cost 21m but does include the tangible benefit of providing facilities for education as well as for professional cricketers.

Question remain over how Leeds Met ever approved some of the deals. The Challenge Cup sponsorship initially went ahead on the basis of just a draft agreement and a deal to pay 125,000 for the right to call Leeds' women's football team Leeds Carnegie Ladies went ahead despite no formal partnership agreement ever being signed.

Loose arrangements surrounding spending have been a theme of Leeds Met's difficult past year, with many breaches in financial regulations being revealed by the Yorkshire Post.

But the university now insists changes to those regulations mean future spending will be subject to much greater control, including tighter restrictions on the financial autonomy of the vice chancellor.