Bates Offers Revenue New Deal

Ken Bates was last night facing an anxious 24-hour wait before finding out if he has headed off a potential HM Revenue and Customs challenge to his consortium's takeover of Leeds United.

Bates and his co-directors, Mark Taylor and Shaun Harvey, made a last-ditch offer to creditors which improved their original offer by eight times. But the likelihood of the Revenue approving the takeover is unclear: one HMRC source described Bates's latest offer as "appalling".

Bates took control of the League One club last month with a 1p-in-the-pound offer to creditors. That means the offered eightfold increase on the original £77,000 promised to the taxman would push upfront payments to just over £600,000, in lieu of a £7.7m debt.

Under the new offer the trigger period for a £5m payment that would be shared by creditors in the event of promotion to the Premiership has been extended from five to 10 years .

"This offer is unconditional, subject to there being no challenge to the administration and the Football League transferring Leeds United's share to the new company," said a club statement. "This [8p-in-the-pound] payment compares favorably with dividends paid by other football clubs that have been through the administration process and with any offers that the administrators received prior to approval of the [takeover]."

Creditors have till 4pm today to decide, on expiry of the 28-day cooling-off period granted to consider the initial offer.