{"id":474770,"date":"2025-10-05T01:12:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T01:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/474770\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T01:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T01:12:19","slug":"lucas-radebe-claims-40m-player-never-actually-wanted-to-leave-leeds-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/474770\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucas Radebe claims \u00a340m player never actually wanted to leave Leeds United"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lucas Radebe is a club legend at Leeds United, and he claims one of their record sales has no desire to depart the club.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The likes of Kalvin Phillips, Raphinha, and Rio Ferdinand are among the most expensive departures in the history of Leeds United<\/a>, with each coming over the last few decades.<\/p>\n

The other pair in the top five are Georginio Rutter and Archie Gray<\/a>, with both exiting Elland Road in the summer of 2024 after losing to Southampton in the play-off final at Wembley.<\/p>\n

Crysencio Summerville also left during that transfer window, but promotion may have seen each of them remain at Leeds beyond. That said, some of them may well have wanted to remain in the Championship anyway.<\/p>\n

\"LeedsPhoto by Alex Dodd \u2013 CameraSport via Getty ImagesLucas Radebe makes Archie Gray claim<\/p>\n

Lucas Radebe has been named as Leeds ambassador<\/a> over the last week, and he played alongside Ferdinand during some hugely successful years as well.<\/p>\n

However, he has also admitted one of those aforementioned record sales did not want to depart. He is, of course, discussing boyhood fan Gray. Spurs signed Gray from Leeds for \u00a340 million<\/a>, with Joe Rodon heading the other way for \u00a310 million.<\/p>\n

At the time, Radebe sent Gray a good luck message after Leeds sold him<\/a>. However, it was a worry that Leeds sold him, even if Leeds\u2019 statement announcing Gray\u2019s departure<\/a>\u00a0stated it would help keep some of their other key players.<\/p>\n

Summerville and Rutter both then followed him out of the exit door. Reflecting on his exit, Radebe spoke on\u00a0Premier League Productions\u2019 Welcome to the Weekend show.<\/p>\n

MORE LEEDS UNITED STORIES<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI think he\u2019s a youngster who has done well from a great family. He will get a warm reception [against Spurs today], I believe that he didn\u2019t want to leave the club, but he will get a good reception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Leeds fans knew they would show respect to Gray<\/a>. In the end, that is exactly what happened. Spurs midfielder Gray was applauded by Leeds fans<\/a> prior to kick-off.<\/p>\n

At full-time, Gray did a lap of honour away from the cameras<\/a>. It was an extremely classy touch from the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n

\"ArchiePhoto by Michael Regan\/Getty ImagesArchie Gray\u2019s reaction to having to face Leeds again<\/p>\n

Thomas Frank offered Gray advice ahead of Leeds<\/a>, with Gray now getting to work under a manager who tried to sign him before Spurs and Ange Postecoglou hijacked a move.<\/p>\n

Leeds did try to tempt Gray into staying<\/a>\u00a0by offering him a new deal but, by that point, it was too little too late. It was an emotional day for him and his family today, though, as Gray has called Elland Road and Leeds his home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, he said: \u201cI can\u2019t wait. That\u2019s my home, that\u2019s where I\u2019ve been raised and I\u2019ve got so much love for Leeds but I\u2019m playing for Tottenham now. We\u2019ve obviously got a job to do at the weekend and we\u2019re looking forward to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready, it feels a little bit weird that we\u2019re going to be playing against a team where I\u2019ve spent virtually my whole life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so grateful for everything that they\u2019ve done for me and I\u2019m so proud to be from Leeds and be one of their own. Of course, it\u2019s going to be unusual going back there this weekend, but we\u2019ve got a job to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucas Radebe is a club legend at Leeds United, and he claims one of their record sales has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[19055,748,393,4884,1860,141075,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-474770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-archie-gray","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-leeds","13":"tag-lucas-radebe","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115318905370841759","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}