New Ridsdale successor says future sales a last resort

New Leeds United boss John McKenzie refused to rule out further sales to help balance the books at the English Premiership club.

But McKenzie said Monday he would not allow any sales to hinder new manager Peter Reid's fight against relegation.

"I'd like to see ways we can increase income and control costs, but you can't build a fine football club without a fine squad of players," he said after taking over as chairman from Peter Ridsdale.

"I would like to restrict to a minimum the sale of players."

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

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

Ridsdale said the intensity of criticism he had taken from supporters after selling off a batch of star players had forced him out.

Ridsdale's departure accompanied interim results for the six months ending on December 31, 2002, which showed the club lost 17.2 million pounds before tax while the total net debt to the end of last year was 78.9 million pounds (120 million dollars).

"I want to look at all the financial situations," said McKenzie. "But I would say breaking up the squad would be a final resort.

"We need to review our strategy as a plc and look at ways of increasing our finance and bringing our debt down. But hopefully not at the cost of damaging our football team.

"My task is to turn this business round and build a structure that can support a fine football team.

"It's a tough challenge but one that I relish. It's going to be a difficult trick to pull off but if everyone stands together we can succeed. But our first priority is to avoid relegation."

McKenzie, appointed as a non-executive director in February, said he had a background dealing with institutions requiring turnaround situations and played down fears the club might be forced into administration.

"You don't have to be a great financial expert to say that you can't go on haemorrhaging money at the rate we have been and survive - but we won't go on haemorrhaging money at that rate," he said.

"Everyone can see the situation needs to be balanced but I'm not contemplating administration. The situation is serious but not impossible."

Leeds fired former England manager Venables after the club slumped to 16th in the table.

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

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.

O'Leary's reported seven-figure severance payment and the sale of Woodgate to Newcastle appeared to be the final straw.

Leeds now faces another massive compensation payment as company figures out Monday revealed Venables was on a two million pound a year contract.