New Leeds United owner targeting Elland Road buyback

The Italian businessman took sole control of the Championship club on Tuesday after buying Massimo Cellino’s remaining 50 per cent shareholding.

A grand vision dubbed ‘Elland Road 2020’ is at the centre of his plans for the future and he sees reclaiming ownership of the club’s stadium as key.

United sold their home in 2004 for a knockdown £8m to stave off a financial crisis, with the sale of the club’s Thorp Arch training ground raising a further £4.2m.

Rent has been paid on both properties ever since and last year this is understood to have amounted to around £2.2m, a significant percentage of the club’s overall £30m outgoings.

A buyback option exists for Elland Road – the rent on which goes up by three per cent compound every October – but not Thorp Arch, hence Radrizzani’s desire to find a new site within the city.

“We are working on buying back the stadium,” confirmed the United chairman to The Yorkshire Post. “This could happen in a few months, maybe by the end of the summer. I only completed the deal (to buy Leeds outright) this week, but have been very active already.

“Officially, I am chairman, but during this period (of co-ownership) with Massimo he let me work on the future. I wasn’t really involved too much on the day-to-day football. My time is now here.”

United’s sale of Elland Road to Manchester businessman Jacob Adler may have been a necessity amid the financial chaos that had befallen the club following relegation from the Premier League.

But it has proved a costly affair, with the rent paid over the intervening years meaning the landlord – Teak Commercial Limited, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands – has received more than double the purchase price.

The buyback price, which like the rent rises every 12 months, is believed to be around £17m.

Radrizzani added: “The club has to pay higher rent every year. We don’t know at the moment if it will be the club (that buys the stadium), me financing the club to do it or buying the property with another vehicle, but the club for sure will be lighter and there will be a lot of cost-cutting by bringing the asset within my group, rather than a third-party owner.

“We might save £1.5m to £2m every year so it is important. Together with (the) Thorp Arch (rent), it is more than £2m.”

Thorp Arch became United’s training ground in 1994, Howard Wilkinson believing a move away from the old Fullerton Park pitches was long overdue.

The Barn that houses the club’s training facility and Academy was built in 2002, but the site was sold just two years later. A buyback was included in the deal, but that ran out in 2009. United did try to purchase Thorp Arch in conjunction with the Council before that deadline expired, but a proposed £5m deal fell through.

“With Thorp Arch, we have to continue,” said Radrizzani, whose vision also involves developing the land that surrounds Elland Road.

“We can’t get out of that, at least for two or three years we will still be there. But we are working on other solutions for the training centre. If that will happen we will need, of course, the support of the City Council.

“At the moment, I have been very happy that I found a lot of people with an interest in Leeds United in the mayor and the colleagues of the council.

“I am positive and confident that they can be a good support for the club and, hopefully, in a few years we can have a new home for our training ground and free ourselves from additional costs at Thorp Arch.”

As Radrizzani weighs up the best way to fund the buyback of Elland Road, work is already under way on renovating parts of the club’s home.

New lounges will be added this summer, while the dressing rooms are set for an overhaul as part of Radrizzani’s vision to raise standards across the club and instil a winning mentality.

Cellino famously vowed to bring Premier League football back to Leeds within two years of taking charge, but his successor said: “I am younger than Massimo so I will say five years is my timeline.

“If I haven’t done a project in five years and achieved the Premier League in five years then I have probably failed in my objective and it is right that someone else might try.”

Leeds, of course, are the ultimate example of a club over-stretching themselves in the pursuit of success and almost paying the ultimate price. “It will be a rational approach,” added the Italian. “I have seen many cases of new owners coming in, injecting money quickly and without a plan or a project. They went bust pretty soon. This is the last thing I wish.”