By Paul Nicholson
January 25 – NFL team San Francisco 49ers have bumped up their stake in Premier League Leeds United from 15% to 37% in a deal that reportedly values the club at £250-280 million.
49ers Enterprises first took their position in Leeds in 2018, a year after Andrea Radrizzani bought the club, then in the EFL Championship, for £45 million.
The increased stake still leaves Radrizzani as majority shareholder and chair of the club. Paraag Marathe, president of 49ers Enterprises and who already sits on the LUFC board, will become vice-chairman.
“We are delighted to welcome further investment into our club from 49ers Enterprises and I am confident that this latest partnership will help Leeds United continue to grow and develop into the team our supporters deserve,” said Radrizzani.
Emphasising the 49ers buy-in to “the long-term strategy of the club”, and a management skill set that will compliment the Radrizzani’s existing team, the next steps will see plans for a renovation of Leeds’ Elland Rd Stadium, seen as a key step on the way to building a sustainable challenge to the Premier League’s ‘big six’ clubs.
Elland Road already has a capacity of 37,890, but stadium improvement is considered a cornerstone of the club’s three-five year plan to break into the top echelon of the Premier League and increase the value of the business to Radrizzani’s target of £1 billion.
The 49ers’ owners have been in this position having taken an ailing team in an iconic but revenue-limited stadium, to the brand-new state-of-the-art Levi’s Stadium. A move that led to a major revenue boost and an improvement in team performance. The 49ers are expected to be increasingly involved across the construction project and the club’s commercial revenues.
“Our 49ers Enterprises team has always shared Andrea’s vision for constructing a powerful and winning club in the most competitive football league in the world, and the experience of the last three seasons has been more exhilarating than we could have ever imagined,” said Marathe.
“The hard work and bold leadership demonstrated by Andrea and his talented team has restored Leeds United’s rightful place in the Premier League and we look forward to playing an even bigger role in supporting their efforts to climb the table this year and into the future.”
There is a certain sense of déjà vu around the commercial ambition coming from Radrizzani and . Leeds United last won England’s top flight in 1991-92, the season before the birth of the Premier League but then struggled financially and performance-wise. In 1996 the club changed ownership with a group of London-based investors led by investment banker Chris Akers and his broader-based sports-media business arriving with a bold plan for revenue increase, the building of a multi-sports business in Leeds and stadium regeneration.
Those plans fell foul of local intransigence and a refusal to grant local planning permissions to the upstart money men from the south. Despite that the club saw the bedrock laid for a resurgence in form that pushed it back up the league. But the money men became impatient and quickly moved on to greener-backed pastures and an over-spending club rapidly ran out of cash.
For Leeds the question will be whether locally they have learned the lessons of the past and for the money men, how much patience will they have if local obstacles slow them down?
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