Economist and Leeds United fan David McWilliams dropped in for a virtual chat with Off The Ball on Tuesday to relive some Champions League memories.
Yes, kids, Leeds were in the Champions League - no, not in John Giles day either. In 2001, they got to the Champions League semi-finals.
They had a good team too, Harry Kewell - when he was good - Jonathan Woodgate at his fittest (relative term), Rio Ferdinand, Lee Bowyer, Robbie Keane too.
Good players? Yes. Prudent and sustainable financial model? Not so much.
David McWilliams, like Robbie Keane inside the six-yard box, is not going to miss out on a metaphorical open goal.
"Leeds United were the Anglo Irish Bank of football teams," says the author of The Pope's Children.
"It was the Anglo of football teams, it was actually the same model. I remember writing about Leeds at the time in my Sunday Business Post column in around 2006 to suggest this is exactly what is going to happen to us.
"If you base your entire edifice on leverage, on other people’s money, every single thing has to go right for you in order for you to succeed."
House of Cards
The economist highlighted the precariousness of the finances of his boyhood club and that of the failed bank.
"If one part of that equation goes wrong, if one supposition or expectation or assumption you have goes wrong. Then the entire house of cards falls down because everything is related to everything else.
"So you see at Leeds, this disaster was, number one: Champions League, but much more importantly number two, where you have these ridiculous fixed costs."
The 'fixed costs' McWilliams refers to is players' wages. here he cited the recklessness of the Leeds executive where players including Robbie Fowler and Robbie both being on the payroll, long after leaving the club.
"The wage bill, in the expectation of most clubs, your wage bill would have been regarded as something variable, but when you have a fixed wage bill and it’s incredibly high," says McWilliams is a fatal financial mistake.
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