Bullish Bates vows to fight
08 Jul 2007 - 15:50:39
Leeds United chairman Ken Bates has vowed to take legal action should the cash-strapped League One club be sold to a rival bidder.
The Elland Road club were put up for sale on Friday after Bates' original bid to buy the club back was challenged by the Inland Revenue.
Administrators KMPG have set a Monday deadline for potential new bidders to come forward with rumours suggesting some of Bates' rival consortia are planning to join together to launch a fresh takeover approach.
But Bates still believes his offer is the only viable one and has warned he will not give up without a fight.
"Our bid is the original deal that was done in the meeting of creditors when we placed the Company Voluntary Agreement on June 1," he told Yorkshire Radio.
"We have amended it twice to try and meet the Inland Revenue's objections and now we've withdrawn the conditionality of it, so it's now unconditional.
"We believe in fact our offer is valid. Therefore it should be the only one to be accepted.
"So there's a problem and a possibility that if the administrator goes down another route then there could be further legal battles.
"After all, we haven't come all this way over the last two-and-half years, borrowed and spent all that money, got the club turned round, got rid of all the bad organisation that the previous regimes left in place to go out without a fight."