Video: Leeds chairman defends Gulf owners’ transfer policy

Three months as Leeds United chairman have burdened Salah Nooruddin with questions on all fronts: investment, transfers, the impact of his manager and the ultimate subject of where the GFH Capital era will end.

Each of those issues is connected and intertwined. Investment pays for transfers which in turn help Brian McDermott to meet the objectives of United’s owners. It sounds simple in theory but football clubs don’t thrive on theory. They progress as quickly as reality allows.

Transfers have dominated the agenda for the past 10 days, largely because United’s results turned sour as September waned. A scrambled win over Bournemouth on Tuesday settled the stomach of a manager who admitted he had “gone through the mill” but the mood on the ground is that Nooruddin and his directors – David Haigh and Salem Patel – are presiding over a squad too weak to keep up with the Championship’s pace.

In an interview with the YEP staged before Tuesday’s game, Nooruddin said McDermott had a “mandate” to look for and sign a striker and a winger on loan. Later that night McDermott was asked about his budget and said he was satisfied with it. The problem, he claimed, was that the targets he had chosen to approach were all unavailable. “I won’t sign players for the sake of it,” he said. “I just won’t do that.”

Yet the debate runs deeper and much further back. It focuses primarily on a summer transfer window in which McDermott asked for six players, signed a total of four and struggled to mask his feelings in the periods when progress was painfully slow.

It begs of Nooruddin: was enough done to a squad which finished 13th in the Championship last season and might conceivably have been relegated?

“I think it was enough for the situation at that time,” Nooruddin said. “But it’s a dynamic situation going forward. Brian has a mandate to look for a couple of players now and if he’s successful then all the better.

“He’s a very sensible manager and he looks at every element of the picture here. That’s what he did (in the transfer window). I think we were all happy and satisfied with what we did in the summer.

“We made four successful acquisitions and enriched the squad. The signings were reviewed and analysed by Brian but as we went into the season we continued a very dynamic review of the squad.

“We also listened to the fans and everyone’s telling us that we’re lacking this element and that element. We take all those views into account but we leave it to Brian to find what he thinks suits the squad.”

Conversations with any of United’s directors always involve the phrases long-term and sustainable future. Nooruddin stated openly, as GFH Capital has before him, that his interest in Leeds is “not an overnight investment”. “This is long-term for us,” he said.

United’s investment in McDermott, who signed a three-year contract in April, is the same. Nooruddin’s expectation of the squad this season is that they do better than last season. In other words, finish 12th or higher. He has not asked for promotion and does not intend to, mindful of United’s results last month.

“Promotion would be a very harsh target this season,” he said. “Always we talk about the long term, about the stability of the club and the harmony of the club. Brian fits very well into that.

“We’re implementing a strategy and if as much as possible we can try to achieve a better result than last season then that would be good – with the aim of achieving promotion eventually, in the near future.”

The argument goes that the likelihood of promotion to the Premier League depends entirely on the board’s ability to fund that rise. Leeds have three shareholders – GFH Capital, Envest Limited (owned by Nooruddin and his wife) and Bahrain’s International Investment Bank (IIB) – but the effort to find new investment is constant, despite the insistence from Nooruddin and those around him that they are not looking for a quick exit strategy.

The YEP reported in August about a potential deal which would yield sufficient cash to fund the buy-back fee of around £15million to purchase Elland Road but that proposal does not appear to have moved forward. Nooruddin said Leeds were “close to engaging” with one investor but did not offer a timescale.

Asked about the potential repurchase of Elland Road, Nooruddin said: “It has changed. We have huge interest in the club from many investors and the fact is we’re being very selective. If we leave the door open then a lot of people would put money into the club but we want to have one or two strategic investors who share our vision but also have the financial capability to support the club alongside us.

“GFH and myself are standing here to support this club for as long as it takes to achieve our objectives. But we would always seek investment. We are talking to investors and it could be that something is closed in the near future.

“But it could take time too because these processes do take time. People don’t just throw money into the club. They have to understand the dynamics of it and that’s not just about financial objectives. Financial objectives have to go alongside the passion and emotion of a club.” One thing which remains open to interpretation is United’s financial state. Patel, GFH Capital’s executive, talked of “cash-flow issues” when the club were sold by Ken Bates in December and the wage bill has climbed to around £15m.

McDermott operated on a one-in, one-out strategy during parts of the summer but Nooruddin denied that the wage bill was a worry, saying: “It’s sustainable and manageable. We need to tweak it but it shouldn’t prevent us getting more players, now or in the long run.

“What we’ve done in a short period of time is significant. Our first objective was to stabilise the club financially. We did that and I think the advent of Brian McDermott has settled and taken care of the technical aspects too.

“Financially we’re doing very well and as we’ve said, we’re looking to bring investors with us – people who can add value to the club in terms of mobilising funds. All of that will fit into our medium to long-term objectives.”

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