The chief executive of Leeds Fans LLP, a group looking to buy a stake in Leeds United to introduce fan ownership into the club, has confirmed that they did hold talks with drinks giants Red Bull, who have been looking at the Whites along with Aston Villa.
The ownership situation at Elland Road is in the air amid suggestions that current majority owner Massimo Cellino, who is currently banned from running the club due to a Football League sanction which expires next month, is considering selling up and heading back to Italy.
Leeds Fans LLP is looking to raise enough finance from fans to push for a seat at the table and shares in the club. However, they will not talk to Cellino or minority owners GFH Capital until such time as they have the funds to be serious players.
Six parties have approached Leeds Fans LLP for talks and of the six, five have indicated they would be prepared to consider fan ownership as part of their own move to buy the club. While the identities of most are secret, Red Bull and actor Russell Crowe, who owns an Australian rugby league team, have been regularly linked with buying Leeds.
Drinks giant Red Bull, who own Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig, were unwilling to give any assurances on fan ownership to Leeds Fans LLP. And the lid has now been lifted on talks between Leeds Fans LLP and Red Bull by the group's chief executive Dylan Thwaites.
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He told BBC Radio Leeds: "The only party we've talked to that wasn't prepared to offer fan ownership was Red Bull.
"Red Bull approached us via an intermediary as far back as the Reading game [on Tuesday 10th February]. We were asked to meet three senior people from Red Bull to talk about their investment in Leeds United.
"Our understanding was that even as far back as then they were looking at either Aston Villa or Leeds United."
And Thwaites revealed that Leeds Fans LLP had a number of concerns regarding Red Bull which they wanted to be eased in advance of any potential meeting, with an eye on how the drinks giant had handled their other football investments.
He continued: "We were obviously very concerned at Red Bull, because the knowledge of how they've dealt with Salzburg fans, Leipzig, made us extremely wary of having an interaction with them.
"Nevertheless we wanted to understand exactly what their plans were and we said quite simply we need assurances before we actually meet with you initially. The assurances are that there would be no change of name for Leeds United, that there would be a fan veto effectively on kit/colour changes and stadium naming rights. We wanted these assurances.
"We were told that the response directly from [Dietrich] Mateschitz [Red Bull supremo] – the intermediary was sat with him in Salzburg – was we needed to trust Red Bull and that would be the way forward.
"It was also said that Mateschitz would have at least 51 per cent. We also had concerns that if the plan was to get Leeds back into Europe that Leipzig and Salzburg wouldn't be allowed into Europe at the same time as us, but we were assured that would be dealt with over time and that Leeds would be the primary Mateschitz/Red Bull vehicle.
"I think they were very aware that Leeds fans are a volatile group and were testing the water.
"When they said we'd just got to trust them we didn't take the meeting. We said this [the assurances] had to be legally binding, not to take the meeting, but for Leeds fans to support their position they needed to have a legally binding position where they wouldn't be changing the name of the club, the kit colour, the stadium naming rights, and they were unprepared to give any legal assurances for that."
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