Back in the early noughties, Leeds United were forced to sell a number of players to aid the club’s financial collapse and prevent The Whites from falling into liquidation.
The delight of Champions League football and the UEFA Cup semi-final, pushing for the top three in the Premier League was immediately subsided by Leeds overreaching their financial arm and plummeting.
Relegation followed in 2004 and in the last 20 years, Leeds have only spent three seasons in the Premier League. Leeds have failed to re-live those heights, Marcelo Bielsa’s ninth in the top tier the best since.
Plenty of players were forced to leave. Alan Smith the most-notable of those as he joined Manchester United for a fee of £7m, while the likes of Paul Robinson, Mark Viduka, Rio Ferdinand and others were sold.
Another player sold during that period was Jonathan Woodgate, who joined Newcastle United for a fee of £9m. Speaking back in 2022, Woodgate shared how he really felt about leaving Leeds to go to Newcastle.
Woodgate admits he cried when leaving Leeds for Newcastle
Lured to Leeds’ academy from Middlesbrough in 1996 aged just 16, Woodgate broke into the senior side in 1998 and went on to play 142 times for Leeds including appearances in the Champions League.
But amid the financial collapse, Woodgate was forced out of Leeds and shipped to Sir Bobby Robson’s Newcastle in January 2003, a whole 18 months before Leeds were relegated from the Premier League.
Speaking to The Times in 2022, Leeds icon Woodgate admitted that he “cried” when leaving Leeds and did not want to leave Elland Road despite the quality of a Newcastle side including Alan Shearer.
“I was crying leaving the training ground because I didn’t want to go. I was absolutely devastated. Not because Newcastle wasn’t a top club. It is; they had players like Alan Shearer, Gary Speed, Laurent Robert, Kieron Dyer, Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Jenas.
“Sir Bobby Robson was manager, but I was happy at Leeds. I loved the club and it was like a family to me. They said, ‘You have to go, otherwise the club’s f***ed, basically,’ and could go into liquidation,” he said.
Woodgate was not the only player to leave Leeds at that time
Nigel Martyn recently said that Leeds bought poorly, citing Robbie Fowler as an example. Leeds had tried to close the gap on Arsenal and Manchester United but in doing so, did not spend well and it failed.
List of players sold by Leeds between 2002 and 2004:
- Woodgate to Newcastle (January 2003, £9m)
- Rio Ferdinand to Man United (August 2002, £30m)
- Robbie Keane to Tottenham (August 2002, £7m)
- Robbie Fowler to Man City (February 2003, £6m)
- Lee Bowyer to West Ham (January 2003, £300k)
- Nigel Martyn to Everton (September 2003, undisclosed)
- Olivier Dacourt to Roma (January 2003, £3.3m)
- Harry Kewell to Liverpool (July 2003, £7m)
- Alan Smith to Man United (May 2004, £7m)
- James Milner to Newcastle (June 2004, £5m)
- Mark Viduka to Middlesbrough (July 2004, £4.5m)
- Paul Robinson to Tottenham (July 2004, £1.5m)
All of those sales was not enough however, as Leeds plunged into administration and it resulted in a 15-point deduction after relegation to League One. These days, Leeds are still recovering from that period.
While the financial state of the club is in much better hands, Leeds have failed to return to the heights that once saw them as one of the best sides in English football. One day, Leeds may return to that stature.
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