Bates in call for investment

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Bates on Friday confirmed his reputation as football's supreme wheeler-dealer by putting Leeds into administration and immediately forming a new company to buy the club back again.

Bates said: "The shares in Leeds United Football Club Limited are owned by Forward Sports Fund who would welcome serious investors to help make this club financially strong again so that we can mount a challenge to firstly gain promotion from League One, and ultimately arrive back in the FA Premiership."

He added: "Since January 2005 we have sought additional investment and have followed up every approach received but refused to deal with unnamed consortiums represented by third parties, if indeed they ever existed.

"To avoid time-wasters we have always required proof of funds first, whereupon they often disappear."

The move to go into administration and subsequent purchase for an undisclosed fee wipes out a substantial chunk of Leeds' £35million debt and leaves Bates and his Swiss backers Forward Sports Fund in charge of the club and remaining assets.

The Football League have imposed the statutory 10-point deduction for going into administration that confirms Leeds' relegation to League One, but with the club all but demoted anyway it means they will start next season with a clean slate.

Bates refused to shoulder any of the blame for Leeds' predicament, and in a statement criticised the club's previous regimes.

He said: "The action taken brings to an end the financial legacy left by others that we have spent millions of pounds trying to settle.

"But the important thing now is not to view this as the end, but the beginning of a new era."