Leeds latest from the horse's mouth. (or the Yorkshire Post)

It is required standard practise for a report on the activities of the board and management to be filed with the DTI if a company goes into liquidation. If the directors and managers have acted responsibly and in the best interests of the business, that will be recorded. If, however, the directors were in any way reckless or failed to exercise their responsibilities properly they can face being disbarred and criminal procedings if appropriate. As regards the rumours about an announcement tomorrow, at this stage they are just that. No newswire has picked up the story and it would have been grossly irresponsible of Trevor Birch to have said such a thing given that so many jobs and over £100m are in the balance. I therefore doubt that the rumour has any foundation in fact. Back to Batty, I am not saying the players got Leeds into the mess- they simply opened their wallets and let Ridsdale get on with it- but they did effectively kill the only deal which would have kept Leeds going to the end of the season without either a forced sale, administration or worse.

Trevor Cherry says Leeds should go into administration. Perhaps unhappy that his side had to back out and convinced they might get a better deal from an administrator?

Just brilliant!

The first rule in business, you look at the situation as it is. Sure Ridsdale is the prime culprit and public enemy number one but there was no shortage of financiers, players, agents, board members, management and supporters who cheered publicity Pete onto his madness. I know of two directors (including the Leeds finance director) who resigned in disagreement with what was going on but there were two many living the dream for the realists to be heard. (At least at Man City, the realists stepped in eventually). And why did the money men put all the money in? Because they knew that if the worst happened, there was probably enough value in Leeds for them to take what they needed to cover the debt. They got some of their sums and projections wrong but they now want "their" pieces of Leeds back to cut their losses. The reason why Batty is the Leeds killer is that there was a one off opportunity which Birch had negotiated in which the money boys would have agreed a standstill to the end of the season had the players agreed to the 35% deferment immediately. The fact that players wages are the biggest obstacle to the creditors getting repaid and Leeds continuation in business clearly didn't occur to the PFA of whom Batty is the spokesman. Four weeks ago Leeds had a once only chance of surviving. Batty caused the opportunity to be missed. I think the way he has been bannished shows just how the peole fighting to save Leeds from the consequences of others' folly feel about what he did. At least one of the creditors will have run the numbers for Leeds starting out again in the Unibond and found that they don't look an awful lot worse from their perspective than some of the numbers for keeping Leeds as they are.

The BBC take on the situation is the gloomiest of the lot. They are seriously talking about receivership and liquidation. I would imagine the player hp people are being the most difficult. They have little they can do other than the suicide pill of receivership and pulling their players out of the Leeds set-up. I think the remarkable work by Trevor Birch is quite probably going to rebound against him in that all the repeated creditor standstills have done is show increasingly how impossible the cocktail of debt Risdale conjured up has become. I come back to the point I made before. There was a moment of gooey soft headedness on the part of the creditors when they agreed to a standstill to the end of the season if the players had taken a 35% deferment of wages. The PFA instead of telling the Leeds players they were incredibly lucky only to lose 35% mishandled its position and quite possibly faces near bankruptcy as the Leeds players will turn to it to pay their contracts when Leeds collapse. The reason why I now think Leeds could well be liquidated is this stupid rule which has come in giving players first call on administration proceeds. If Leeds get liquidated, the HP company will step in and take the contracts of many of the highest earning players and sell the players off in the open market. It is quite probable that the other senior creditors have a lien over Elland Road so they will take that asset. This will mean the players not subject to the HP contracts will then have priority over next to nothing. From the standpoint of the other creditors, destroying Leeds United will get rid of £30m+ of players' contracts' claims which would otherwise come in front of them. Leeds United RIP 2004, killed by David Batty.

Colin that's very accurate. The Independent analyses the three possible scenarios for Leeds here. The Guardian outline how bleak the future looks for Leeds here.

This is a very good analysis of how things stand at Leeds tonight. Precarious.

I think that is business speak for the major creditors not pulling the plug...yet.

We don't have a Chapter 11 in the UK and going into administration has worse consequences. There can be no certainty that the business will be as attractive when the administrator has run the company maximising the returns for the creditors. The Administrator's job is to realise assets more than to run the business. That is why the consortium are trying to buy the club rather than buy whatever is left after the administrator has done his work. The clarification statement this evening states that the creditors' standstill is over- this means Leeds have to start paying their bills immediately or face the prospect of any one unpaid creditor going for a winding up order. It also means that either the consortium take over on the back of having struck deals with all the creditors or the administrators can be called in at any time. There is a very clear statement that the consortium will NOT pay any benefit to the existing shareholders so anyone holding a share in Leeds United plc is now holding a totally worthless piece of paper. The speculated £9m has not materialised.

Krasner is an insolvency expert. I suspect that if the consortium buy Leeds, this is a do-it-yourself administration in all but name. The consortium might have reached agreement with the all the creditors which therefore means they have to buy-out the shareholders to do the deal. Unlike the club, they would not need to treat creditors equally in their dealings with creditors prior to buying the club so they may well have struck a series of side deals which include the creditors surrendering their right of legal action against the club should their acquisition of Leeds succeed. The £9m would be the amount offered in a take it or lose everything offer to buy out 100% of the club. Leeds would then be taken private and de-listed from the Stock Exchange.

In other words, Leeds' shares have been suspended so they don't go up or down due to any leaks about this announcement. Journalists, are not willing to speculate, as that might also influence the shares. No-one wants to say what is happening either way until it is the catagorical truth for these reasons. Have I got that right ?. Yes except the journalists cannot influence the share price given it is suspended. What the journalists are frightened of is saying Leeds are going under and then a creditor or employee who acted as a result subsequently sueing them if they got it wrong. It is now more than an hour since the suspension so either there is a superb piece of news management or there is nobody willing to buy Leeds. All the indicators- creditors not agreeing amongst themselves and a top figure of £30m being quoted as the amount the consortium had assembled- point to a deal not being very close.

Something clearly dramatic is about to happen if the shares are suspended now asopposed to at any of the other deadlines. The share price has been steadily losing ground and whether it is a sale or administration, the shares are effectively worthless- only sentimentalists have been keeping the company's nominal value up but even that had fallen from £13m to £8m. Ordinarily the suspension of a company's shares is because of irregularities either in share dealing or within the company or pending a very major announcement when leaks could prejudice one set of shareholders who don't know relative to those who do. The lack of commentary on the news wires points to journalists wanting to be very careful. That in itself points to very bad news for Leeds. Leeds have said the suspension is pending a statement about their financial position.

A rather gloomy prognosis.

The BBC report is pretty confusing. This one is better. Either, there has been a back door agreement between the two cosortia to avoid them getting into a bidding war or things are very sick at Leeds United. My guess is the latter. Sorry to be repetitive, but the Americans holding first call on gate revenues and season ticket sales for the next 25 years means they are not going to be interested in receiving 20 cents in the dollar from a deal now if they are pretty confident their lawyers can make their agreement stick going through an administration. The Americans would only budge if they thought a receivership and liquidation (i.e. Leeds would disappear altogether) is going to happen and there is too much of an assured future revenue stream from the Leeds fans for that to happen. As it is, both consortiums were talking about paying £20m for settling creditors AND providing new working capital. Taking into account the time value of money and risk and hassle factors, I believe the Americans will only talk when 40 cents in the dollar is offered to them. If the debts are £100m, that means £40m WITHOUT any new working capital or some £55m for creditors if the highest Leeds debt number of £135m is to be believed. Nobody would want to take Leeds on without refinancing them to get them into a position to have a decent chance of avoiding relegation at the end of next season even if they don't go down this season plus a contingency is needed for relegation this summer. All that adds up to around £60m to £75m as the bare minimum figure required. Neither consotium seems to be even remotely close to these numbers and the second lot have recognised reality and walked away. Whether the Leeds draw against a mis-firing ManU last Saturday will be enough to stop the administrators from being called remains to be seen. If the first consortium does not bid now after having six weeks plus to look at it, the future is again very bleak for Leeds. I suspect that Trevor Birch now faces the most difficult creditors' meeting yet. If he gets another week's extension, I suspect he will have been told to inform the consortium that if they do not bid by then, they will be talking to the Administrator after a week tomorrow. What a time for Leeds to be facing their traditional bogey team, Liverpool, this Saturday!

There is conflicting news about Batty- others are reporting he is now willing to go out on loan and thereby help Leeds to defray some of his costs. I don't know why Exeter did not opt for creating a new company and avoid the mess they are now facing as the Revenue look to make them their test case.

Let me quote the Independent on Leeds' mysterious Ugandan: "None of them throws any light into how the self-styled "property tycoon" made his "fortune", the size of which is unknown. He is not listed as the owner of any major assets in Uganda, nor has the £600,000 Lamborghini he reportedly imported ever been seen in public. Harvard University, where he says he studied, has no record of any graduation. Two facts have been confirmed. As a teenager in 1987, he was indeed a winner at the "All Africa Disco Dance Championships", held in Kampala. And he has represented Uganda at athletics. As Mike Ezra, he entered the 400 metres at the 1997 World Indoor Athletics Championships, clocking a time of 53.74sec in the heats. He was eight seconds slower than the eventual gold medallist and more than two seconds slower than any of the other 33 entrants." As if being tormented by dream merchants isn't bad enough, Jermaine Pennant was arrested for drunk-driving in London last night. Following a fine Leeds tradition. Now let me tell you about that hattrick I scored... PS If the next match is Man U away, Leeds will score at least twice.

It is now pretty clear what is going on at Leeds. The Ugandan is as real as the Sheikh and the hattrick I scored at Elland Road in front of a 43,000 crowd. The four local investors will only move in a nanosecond before the Administrator is appointed because £85m into £20m, £100M into £20m or £135m into £20m are all maths that don't go- the only difference is the amount of disappointment and the extent of creative accounting. So Leeds get two more weeks instead of one. Wow, progress. Well not really, because of the cup, Leeds don't play next week so the creditors have to wait two weeks to make their next informed judgment of the likelihood of relegation. As soon as they think no more Prem football at Elland Road, the administrator rather than the Leeds four will move in. It's simply about results on the field and if Citeh, Pompey and Everton start winning it will be bye bye Leeds United plc irrespective of Eddie Gray's best efforts.

Scotty, this is nothing to do with incompetence on the part of the board of Leeds United and everything to do with worthless players hanging onto fat pay packets. Leeds owe £100m+. That is £100m+ of somebody else's money which they are not able to pay. So Leeds have talked to those people whom they cannot pay and asked for patience which is what they got in the creditors' standstill. Leeds could then spend December and January finding a way at least of paying instalments and keeping the club in business long enough this season to see if they can stay up. However, even to do that needed to find £5m from somewhere. The biggest item of expenditure is the players' wages. With about four exceptions, none of the players is of the calibre they would earn even 50% of the money they are taking from Leeds anywhere else. Anyone with one ounce of grey matter would see that the players' only hope of seeing their contracts being paid would be to participate in the full 35% deferment. But no, they refused unless other avenues were considered and that involved a 65% discount to Man U on the outstanding transfer of Ferdinand. As a result, Leeds went past the third of their agreed deadlines with the creditors without a deal on the table. For a creditor that means not only is their patience being stretched but the deal with Man U means there is £2m less available in assets to pay towards their £100m eventually. In other words, Trevor Birch spent £2m of their money to buy himself more time. When creditors see the principle beneficiaries of their patience (the players) behave in such a selfish way, they turn round and get selfish themselves. So an offer to Trevor Birch to extend the standstill to the end of the season if he got the £5m on the basis of a 35% deferral became a further standstill for a week because they did not like what had happened. Trevor Birch was left at the mercy of a Ugandan Sports Philanthropist who isn't for real (nobody takes on a business as complex as Leeds United without having local nationals on the board) and a group of bottom fishing local tykes. Friday 13th will be Friday 13th for Leeds if against all odds, Man City, Pompey and Everton all win tonight. The creditors are gambling on Leeds having a chance of Prem survival and would surely pull the plug if they are still six points plus goal difference away from safety after tonight's games.

No it is quite possible that Leeds could go into administration on Friday although not the most likely of scenarios. However, assuming Leeds are looking at debts of £100m+, the creditors are only delaying calling in the administrators because Trevor Birch is convincing enough of them they will get more money basck with him in charge. If the Consortium or Ugandan are not for real, then Trevor Birch has very little going for him compared with an administrator directly answerable to the creditors. If Leeds lose tonight and City and Pompey win tomorrow, they will be nine points and goal difference away from safety. Would you gamble £100m on them not going down in those circumstances? As I said last Friday, I was genuinely surprised Trevor Birch was not given until the end of the season then. The fact he wasn't means that a majority of the creditor votes can clearly see a set of circumstances in which it would be in their best interest to call the administrator in before the season end. This is why I think there has been some bitter score settling and emasculation of Batty. Trevor Birch might well ask for more salary deferrments to save the club.

FLB, having been in the position of fighting to keep a struggling company afloat, I do know what I am talking about. Each creditor has their own interest and legally any one of them can kill you. It is like spinning plates on top of bamboo canes- you've got to run round keeping them all spinning all the time because any one falling off kills the show! I am pretty clear in my own reading that on 29 January, Trevor Birch had a solution if the players had taken the 35% deferrment then. They didn't and Leeds could still collapse on Friday 13th. The creditors will have looked at the players and said: "Why should I write off a sizeable chunk of my debt when a bunch of grossly overpaid footballers who are not good enough to sustain a place in the Premier League and are lead by a mouthy 35 year old who is not good enough to get into the first team of the bottom club are not willing to only earn £700K a year after taking a pay deferrment?" As a consequence many of the deals Birch would have done dependent on getting the players' agreementr would have been instantly withdrawn the momernt shop steward Batty came on with the strop. Ron Atkinson got it right when he lambasted the players. The choice wasn't between 65% and 100% of their contract being paid- it was between 65% and 0%. There is no doubt Gray has acted to sort out Batty now to show to everyone at Elland Road "you are either with us or you are against us". How many times have I got to explain, the fans will only matter if all season ticket holders are capable of paying more than £5,000 a head to pay off the debts? Otherwise they are hostages to what ever is coiming their way.

Middlesbrough are in the old county of Yorkshire. On current performances, there is more likelihood of Wigan being in the Prem than Sheff U.

An interesting report on how the people of Leeds see the club's plight. On a seperate decision, I have to say I was pleased to see that Leeds have told Batty he has played his last game for them. If Leeds go out of business, Batty probably played the decisive role in killing them when as PFA rep he scuppered what was probably a done deal to rescue the club ten days ago if the players had taken the 35% cut then. A pithy commentary on Leeds players in general.

Having watched Mute Swan evict Canada Geese from their chosen nesting site when I lived by the Thames, no doubt about it- the swans win. Just the same in the small talk lions or tigers question. A full grown Bengal Tiger weighs twice as much as a Ger Lion. The big 'un always wins.

Things are not good if they have only got another week. Birch had been optimistic he would get to the end of the season at today's meeting. The behind the scenes negotiations must be fun!