Strange goings on at Leeds United

The administration process of Leeds United football club thows up many questions. I use the term throws up advisedly because to me the whole thing is sickening.

It appears that Ken Bates has successfully taken back the club on terms of one penny in the pound for creditors, mainly on the votes of anonymous overseas companies. Even the administrators, the hapless KPMG, acknowledge they don't know who is behind these companies.

For all I know they may be legitimate - though why they would accept one per cent when bigger offers were on the table, I can't imagine. But they may also be covers for all kinds of criminal activities - drug running, prostitution, child slavery. Who can tell?

Even more strange, Mr Bates is willing to win on the back of these companies even though up to now his own conditions for talking to any would-be investor is that a) they prove they have sufficient funds and b) they don't hide behind a front man but reveal who they are.

The other aspect of the Leeds saga that I find obscene is that a Football League regulation ensures that football creditors i.e. clubs and already vastly overpaid footballers, get their debt paid in full. In this case it means that some already very wealthy players will receive thousands of pounds while a local hospice picks up pennies.

All this comes in the same week that we hear predictions that it won't be long before some players are paid £200,000 per week. How long would it take a nurse in that hospice to earn that kind of money - at a guess around 10 years.

Football has clearly lost its moral compass and we are partly to blame because we allow it to happen. I've always loved the game and defended it but right now I don't care if I never see another game.

Saltaire Sam