“I know we had a bad year but it’s was disappointing to see players crawl over broken glass to leave our club” – Leeds CEO Angus Kinnear finally speaks out on mass exodus at Elland Road this summer as he says club were naive
Leeds United were “naive” and “underestimated the strength” of some players’ desire to leave the club during the summer transfer window, according to CEO Angus Kinnear.
It was a busy summer in regard to turnover at Elland Road as 18 players, including some key stars they had hoped to keep, left the club following relegation from the Premier League to the Championship.
Although he understood the severity of the situation, Kinnear was surprised by how desperate some players were to leave throughout the summer.
Speaking to The Athletic’s Square Ball Podcast (7 September), the Leeds CEO said, “I have to say, I kind of feel like I’ve been maybe naive about it, but it’s been just brutally disappointing at how we’ve seen players want to crawl over broken glass to leave our club.
“You guys know, I love the club and I know we’ve had a bad year but I thought there would be for a number of these players, there’d be a bigger emotional bond and there’d be a desire to sort of put right bad seasons that they had last year.
“I think it’s more of an issue of people’s lack of desire to play in the Championship and I have to say, I would confess we definitely underestimated the strength of that feeling.”
A relegation is never a pleasant experience for anyone involved with a football club, whether that be the supporters, staff, players, or those higher up in the board room. When a club goes down, plenty of jobs become uncertain, not less so those of the players taking to the pitch, except in that case, it is often the employees making the demands.
Some stars will feel the desire to move and play at a higher level immediately, rather than stay and fight with the club, and Kinnear should have expected a busy summer in terms of outgoings, as that is certainly what he got. Elland Road was a revolving door for players coming in and out of the club all summer.
A few of them were so desperate to leave that they employed tactics that wouldn’t have made them very popular in the stands at Elland Road, and if Kinnear has learnt anything, it is that he won’t want to stick around in the Championship too much longer.
