A blast from the boardroom past brokering Aussie consortium deal?

Rumours sweeping the Leeds internet forums this weekend suggest that former Leeds Sporting director Chris Akers is brokering an Australian consortium deal to buy United from Ken Bates.

Read into it what you will, Akers must be a very busy man right now as he has also been linked with a buy-out of troubled Scottish giants Rangers as part of an Arab consortiun,

Akers emerged at Elland Road in 1996 when Leeds United were sold to the Caspian group who evolved into Leeds Sporting. The man who made his money in the dot.com boom was eventually replaced by a certain Peter Ridsdale.

The rest as they say is history.

The prospect of Leeds being acquired by Australian dollars is not a new rumour. In April, Frank Lowy the Australian billonnaire owner of the Westfield group (they may own a shopping centre near you!) was reportedly ready to acquire the whites'. This came to nothing and typically it drew a barbed response from Papa Smurf, who accused Lowy of having "buggered up the town centre of Bradford.." - a dig at Westfield's development in our neighbouring city.

I feel, as usual, these rumours are absolutely untrue and our future is very much in the hands of 78-year-old Bates! Meanwhile our latest "signing" is apparently going to be Leroy Lita from Middlesbrough for £500,000. It seems unlikely Leeds would pay that much for a striker who's goals per game ratio at Boro is only marginally better than fellow Congolese striker Tresor Kandol's is at Leeds.

Photo: Action Images

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