Cut-price Leeds for sale

Leeds United can be bought for just £25 million, Standard Sport can reveal today.

That's the cash price the club's creditors will take now rather than lose most of their £60m series of loans if the club go into adminstration.

Leeds were yesterday given a lifeline after successful negotiations by chief executive Trevor Birch for a seven-week stay of execution in which time they need to find a buyer or new investors.

The club have debts of £80m and lost £49.5m last year. But the creditors, mostly bondholders who lent Leeds money secured against future gate receipts, know that the chances of getting much back for their loans in administration are slim even though they will be treated as preferential creditors.

The club is worth £17.38m on today's Stock Market, but City experts regard this as an artificially inflated price because the shares have doubled in recent days after speculation that either a Bahraini, Sheikh Al-Khalifa, or former deputy chairman Allan Leighton, are putting together consortiums to save the club.

On top of this £25m, it is believed any buyer would need to make a cash injection of £15-20m to help secure a new manager, and prevent the sale of top players such as Alan Smith and Mark Viduka.

Meanwhile Birch, in an exclusive interview, talks for the first time about his time with Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and his rescue efforts at Leeds.

He also claims that Abramovich was much nearer to buying Tottenham, after a meeting with chairman Daniel Levy, than first thought.