{"id":505620,"date":"2025-10-17T01:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/505620\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T01:48:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:48:16","slug":"peter-ridsdale-makes-shocking-leeds-united-sustainability-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/505620\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Ridsdale makes shocking Leeds United “sustainability” claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Leeds United<\/a> chairman Peter Ridsdale<\/a> has sprung to his own defence over the early-2000s capitulation at Elland Road. It comes amidst drastic proposals to change Premier League spending limits in November.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leeds\u2019 battles to stay in the Premier League this season aren\u2019t helped by PSR restrictions hampering their ability to spend on overhauling the squad.<\/p>\n

The Premier League are proposing changes to how clubs are permitted to spend, per The Times<\/a>. If a vote is approved next month, a \u2018salary cap\u2019 could come in that limits each side to a budget of around \u00a3550million per season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most Read on LeedsAllOver<\/p>\n

Peter Ridsdale responds to Premier League salary cap debate and leaps to Leeds United defence<\/p>\n

Former Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale was brought in by talkSPORT on Thursday<\/a> morning to dissect the issues regarding this Premier League proposal.<\/p>\n

Such a change would be a significant detriment to the bigger clubs in the league. It would harm their chances of offering competitive wages compared to other elite clubs in Europe.<\/p>\n

\"\"Peter Ridsdale opposes Premier League changes to clubs\u2019 spending limits. (REUTERS\/Phil Noble)<\/p>\n

Ridsdale was against the notion of this de facto \u2018salary cap\u2019. To which, host Jim White asked if such a restriction would have prevented Leeds from going under in the early 2000s. Ridsdale oversaw short-sighted spending in pursuit of Champions League football, but doesn\u2019t think he was to blame.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe it would,\u201d Ridsdale responded. \u201cI mean, people keep throwing Leeds United back in my face, but the reality was after I left, 18 months later, they got relegated. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in those days, it\u2019s a separate subject as you know, parachute payments didn\u2019t exist, and it was on relegation that Leeds got into financial difficulties. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was chairman, we were never outside of the top five, and therefore we were sustainable until relegation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Peter Ridsdale makes a shocking claim about Leeds United\u2019s sustainability<\/p>\n

Ridsdale may have a point when discussing the impact that this Premier League rule change will have on the best clubs. But he\u2019s just wrong with how he references Leeds.<\/p>\n

Leeds after the turn of the millennium are perhaps the most famous case study in football history when it comes to running a club unsustainably.<\/p>\n

Leeds were dishing out massive contracts and spending huge fees, gambling on the basis of securing consistent Champions League football. When United finished outside the Champions League places, they were then forced into a fire sale of their best players. Ultimately we ended up relegated in 2004, before tumbling down to League One and facing complete oblivion.<\/p>\n

\"\"Leeds United\u2019s former chairman Peter Ridsdale has defended his time at the club. (Action Images, Digital)<\/p>\n

Ridsdale held a press conference<\/a> in 2003 addressing the huge cost-cutting that came as a direct result of the financial mismanagement under his stewardship. His iconic phrasing of course goes against everything he just said to Jim White.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cShould we have spent so heavily in the past? Probably not, but we lived the dream, we enjoyed the dream. Only by making the right decisions today can we rekindle the dream once again in the future, and that is what we intend to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Leeds were relegated as a direct result of being unsustainable on Ridsdale\u2019s watch. Maybe these current spending restrictions wouldn\u2019t have changed anything. However, there\u2019s no hiding from the fact that we absolutely weren\u2019t \u201csustainable\u201d during Ridsdale\u2019s tenure. Because we couldn\u2019t sustain it.<\/p>\n

Read more: Adam Underwood makes Leeds United, top-half Premier League claim\u2026<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Leeds United chairman Peter Ridsdale has sprung to his own defence over the early-2000s capitulation at Elland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,25764,393,4884,1860,2922,142361,165725,101,142362,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-505620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-elland-road","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-leeds","13":"tag-leeds-united","14":"tag-lufc","15":"tag-peter-ridsdale","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-the-whites","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115386994523585337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505620","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=505620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}