if promoted leeds need to declare owners

Leeds United will be required to reveal exactly who owns the club if they win promotion to the Premier League.

The club is currently operated by a West Indies-based holding company.

Premier League chairman Richard Scudamore said the Football League had not applied ownership disclosure rules as "robustly" as the Premier League.

He told a parliamentary committee: "Our clubs agree that we should tell the public who owns the clubs, and anything short of that is inadequate."

Scudamore was speaking on Tuesday to the Culture, Media and Sport parliamentary committee investigating the governance of football.

Last month, Leeds United chief executive Shaun Harvey told the committee that the club is owned by a holding company called FSF based in the West Indian island of Nevis, owned by three discretionary trusts.

The owners of these trusts are unknown but have appointed two men, Patrick Murrin and Peter Boatman, to run the club, with Ken Bates as chairman.

Leeds' ownership statement claims no single person or company owns more than 10% of the discretionary trusts. Leeds are currently fifth in the Championship hoping to win promotion back to the Premier League.

But Scudamore warned that that the Premier League would apply the rules on ownership transparency more rigidly than the Football League has done.

"The Football League have one view of how to interpret that rule and we have a more stern or harsh view of what the rule means," he warned.

"If it arises, if Leeds United on sporting merit deserves to be in the Premier League, we will do all we can to persuade them to stay within the rules."




that's the polite way of saying if you don't comply forget about promotion