Under-fire Leeds boss Risdale quits

Under-fire Leeds United chairman Peter Ridsdale resigned, the listed English Premiership club told the London Stock Exchange.

However, Ridsdale, chairman for nearly six years, will continue as a non-executive director of the Elland Road club. Leeds confirmed that Professor John McKenzie will take over from Ridsdale.

Ridsdale has been under heavy criticism from supporters after Leeds' poor season, which has seen them slump to 16th in the Premiership.

The club sacked Terry Venables 10 days ago after just eight months in charge and replaced him with former Sunderland boss Peter Reid.

Venables took over form high-spending David O'Leary but he soon found the club was desperate to sell players to pay off their debts.

Venables was unable to prevent Risdale selling a batch of first-team players in an attempt to solve the club's financial crisis that saw their debts rise to 78 million pounds (120 million dollars).

Within a fortnight of Venables taking over star defender Rio Ferdinand was sold to rivals Manchester United for 30 million pounds.

Robbie Keane went to Tottenham, Olivier Dacourt was loaned out to Roma, Lee Bowyer sold to West Ham, Robbie Fowler sold to Manchester City and finally Jonathan Woodgate was offloaded to Newcastle for 8 million pounds.

Shareholders nevertheless re-elected Ridsdale as Leeds chairman by a record majority in November, as he pledged to bring stability to the club.

But negotiations over O'Leary's severance settlement - believed to be a seven-figure sum - rumbled on for several months before the final straw came in the shape of the of Woodgate to Newcastle.

Venables had received assurances from Ridsdale that no other star players would be sold so when Woodgate was offloaded supporters vented their anger at Ridsdale.

Leeds United lost 17.2 million pounds before tax in the six months ending December 31, according to figures released to the Stock Exchange on Monday.

And the total net debt to the end of last year was 78.9 million pounds.

"The figures for the past half year are disappointing and reflect the fact that we missed out for the second year running on qualification for the Champions League," Risdale said in a statement.