• An Unreserved Welcome
  The Supporters Trust gives an unreserved welcome to the outline proposals made today by Mr Bates more ....
• Yorkshire Division of the FSF
  The inagaugural meeting of the new division will be held in Leeds more ....
• STATEMENT - Thorpe Arch
  The Leeds Supporters Trust are proposing a new fans' initiative to acquire the club's Thorp Arch training facilities more ....
• Still waiting ... 22nd Sept 2008
  Despite the promise from the Club, the Supporters' Trust have heard nothing further from either the club or from Crimeproofing. Club's statement here ...
• A statement from Leeds United Supporters' Trust, 12th Sept 2008:
  "We do not know of an organisation calling themselves LUIST and we do not know who is speaking on their behalf. All such comments from LUIST have nothing to do with the Leeds United Supporters' Trust."
• An enigma within a mystery
  Ken Bates speaks about the Supporters Trust here ...
• The Football League Supporters Survey 2008
  here ...
• Name change for Leeds United Ladies
  Leeds United Ladies reborn as Leeds Carnegie Ladies more...
• 01/05/08 - Arbitration Report
  The trust is making the report available for download here...
• Leeds United lift the FA Cup!
  The Trust gets its hands on the Cup! more...

The Supporters Trust gives an unreserved welcome to the outline proposals made today by Mr Bates for the buyback of Thorp Arch. In his subsequent interview on Yorkshire Radio Mr Bates made it abundantly clear that this scheme will have nothing to do with The Supporters Trust and that it has nothing to do with the proposals previously made by the Trust with regard to the buyback. The Trust nevertheless supports the outlined proposals and looks forward to seeing more of the detail when this becomes available. Even though the Trust itself is excluded from this scheme from this time onwards, it is anticipated that Trust members will seek their own individual ways to support the clubs independent scheme. This is a far-sighted and brave proposal from Mr Bates and congratulations are in order. It will be a difficult process to bring this scheme to a successful conclusion and the Trust wishes to acknowledge in advance the hard work which will be required on the part of those given the task of making this scheme a success. They will need widespread support if they are to achieve their objectives.

Yorkshire Evening Post Article

The Leeds Trust is a member of the national FSF -Football Supporters Federation.

Following a reorganisation there is now a new Yorkshire Division of the FSF.

The inagaugural meeting of the new division will be held in Leeds on Sunday 26th October and all Trust members are invited to attend.

If you think that you will be attending please let us know as soon as you can because we would like to ensure that all attendees are provided with a buffet lunch.

The meeting will be held at The Old Peacock on Elland Road at 1pm.

The Leeds Supporters' Trust are proposing a new fans' initiative to acquire the club's Thorp Arch training facilities prior to the expiry of the October 2009 buyback option clause. The Trust recognises and understands that this cannot be acheived without the full co-operation of Leeds United Football Club.

The objective of the Trust in making this proposal will be to enable the directors of the football club continued freedom to make financial decisions with regard to the best use of limited resources but without the substantial financial distraction which the buyback deadline represents.

The intention will be to provide the club with continued use of the Thorp Arch facilities on the same terms as at present but with a new 5 year buyback option. This should substantially reduce the financial pressures in the immediate future and permit improved medium term financial planning.

The scheme requires substantial bank finance and sponsors, but will also include an appeal for Leeds supporters to contribute, with the intention that these fans contributions will permit a reduction in the rent charged to the club (i.e. below the current level).

The scheme will request donations but, primarily, fans will be asked to make £100 interest-free loans into the scheme. The intention is that all of these loans will be repaid when the club eventually purchases the Thorp Arch facility by making use of the extended buyback option.

Protection of fans money will be a primary concern for the Trust in setting up this scheme and much will depend upon the legal framework of the buyback options and of course on the willingess of fans to contribute to this cause.

The Trust has opened initial discussions with the club in order to progress this proposal, but wishes to make clear that this does not imply the clubs approval or encouragement at this very early stage. In order for this initiative to succeed, the active involvement of all fans groups will be welcomed by the Trust.

The Trust wishes to stress than no appeal for fans' money has yet been made either by way of donations or loans and no such appeal will be made until such time as the proper safeguards are in place and until such time as the club indicates that it wishes to take these ideas further.

This is a 12 month project and many requirements need to be in place before any fans money becomes involved.

Statement released from Leeds United to the BBC on29th August 2008
"The club use the services of intellectual Property Protection Agents, Crimeproofing Limited.

We will always take action to prevent the unauthorised use of the clubs trademark where we believe the use of such marks are going to potentially mislead individuals into believing that the product is either 'official' or 'endorsed' by the club or if there is an element of commercial gain.

It is not and never was our intention to close down fans message boards. We will ensure that this clarification is passed on to all those parties that have been contacted by Crimeproofing within the next 48 hours.

Kind regards

Shaun Harvey
Leeds United Football Club Ltd"

The Leeds United Supporters' Trust are still waiting for this clarification from either the club or from Crimeproofing Ltd.

Leeds United Supporters Trust
The Independent voice for Leeds fans

"I must explain that the Members Club is the only officially recognised organisation for fans who follow Leeds United. There are two other organisations who currently use the Leeds United name but have no connection with the Club, do not help the Club in any way and we have no contact with them: they are the Supporters Club and the Supporters Trust. The latter is an enigma within a mystery. In the absence of a response to our request for information, until demonstrated otherwise, we can only assume that they are very small and of no consequence."
Ken Bates - August 2008 letter to Members

Now is your chance to contribute to an independent voice for LUFC fans. The other groups mentioned by Ken Bates have their own functions. Being independent, we can be supportive of the club's actions when appropriate and we can be critical of the club's actions when the membership think that criticism is called for.

Join the independent Leeds United Supporters Trust and let your voice be heard! Join Here

Published Date: 08 July 2008 YEP
By Lee Sobot

Leeds United Ladies are today reborn as Leeds Carnegie Ladies with chairperson Melanie Vauvelle-Don hoping the ultimate reward for them is to lift some silverware. Leeds approach the new season following a best-ever third- place finish in the Women's Premier League in a campaign which also saw them finish runners-up in the women's FA Cup.

Now a new dawn awaits the Ladies with the partnership with Leeds Met University and their Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education.

Leeds Met will provide the club with additional resources both on and off the field, including a full-time football administrator to be based at the University.

The University, recently announced as the home of the UK Centre for Coaching Excellence, will also use their expertise to put together a business plan to move the club forward and build on the success they have enjoyed in the last few years.

Formidable Arsenal will take some budging, but Vauvelle-Don is hoping Leeds reap the rewards from their exciting new partnership.

"We want to offer our players not only the best coaching, club structure and chance of winning trophies but also look to develop and support their educational needs too," she said.

"This is something we believe no other club in the country can offer. "The club has done very well in getting through to three cup finals in three years but now we don't just want to participate we want to win something and with the additional support from Carnegie this now gives the club the best chance to do that."

Leeds' Ladies team entered into a formal partnership with Leeds Met last year - the first of its kind between a university and a national Women's Premier League club.

The side have already benefited from Leeds Met's world-class coaching and sports science facilities, as well as expert advice in a variety of fields - including sports performance from the renowned Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education.

A bespoke scholarship programme has been created to help develop both the university and Leeds United Ladies recruitment strategies, with the first of the new scholars joining the university this summer.

England International Sue Smith is already a Carnegie Champion, working closely with Leeds Met to support the club's community work and its flourishing youth development programme. Leeds Met student and Carnegie scholar, Carla Cantrell, also recently signed for Leeds Carnegie Ladies. Carla, also a regular in the University's women's football team, joined the team from local rivals Doncaster Rovers Belles.Carla has scored goals consistently in the FA Women's National Premier League for the past two seasons and has been regularly involved in England under-23 squads and has also had a full England training camp call-up.

Vauvelle-Don added: "We enjoyed working together with Carnegie in our first year of the initial agreement."Without their support we certainly would not have had the success we did have last season but we are conscious of the need to develop this partnership further. "We needed more support to develop the club and after speaking with Carnegie it soon became clear that this new partnership was the best way forward. "We are delighted to be signing this new agreement with Leeds Met Carnegie where they have already proved themselves as fantastic ambassadors of sport with rugby, cricket and super league netball as well as proving just how serious and supportive they are of women's and girls' sport with our initial partnership."

Mark Dorey, of Communications at Leeds Met, expressed his joy at the new partnership. "Women's football is the fastest growing women's sport in the country and to support it at an elite level and grass roots level is a fantastic opportunity," he said."It's not a takeover, it's the strengthening of the existing partnership, but it will involve a football administrator being based at the Uni'. We are talking to the club to see who they best see fit to fill that role." The partnership with Leeds Ladies adds to Leeds Met Carnegie's strong portfolio of commitments to a wide range of sports, as well as partner clubs. Earlier this year the University announced naming rights to Yorkshire County Cricket Club one-day side until the end of the 2012 season. The University also has naming rights to rugby league's Carnegie Challenge Cup and World Club Challenge, the Leeds Carnegie rugby union team and a Superleague netball franchise. Dorey added: "We're absolutely delighted and we have a good range of Leeds sports that we are involved in.

The Leeds United Supporters Trust got their hands on the FA Cup on Sunday 20th April, while attending a meeting of Supporters Direct in Bradford! (Shame about the red ribbons, but at least we got the lufc logo in the shot!)

Board members took part in several development workshops throughout the day covering a variety of Supporters Trust activities.

As well as formal development training, provided by Supporters Direct, this was a valuable opportunity to meet with members of many other Supporters Trust Boards and to exchange ideas and learn from each other.

Leeds Board members intend to increase the representation of LUFC fans as regards the club and the wider community.

The meeting closed with a discussion forum dealing with club ownership and the Trust took the opportunity to discuss current pressing issues both with the Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe MP and the Chief Operating Officer of the Football League, Mr Andy Williamson.

The issue of the missing Jules Rimet replica which should have been presented to Les Cocker was raised with Malcolm Clark, an FA Council member. Malcolm has already written to FIFA President Sepp Blatter with regard to the WC3 medals issue.