Ken Bates Buy's Leeds United

Ken Bates has become the major shareholder of Leeds in a move that ends concerns over exactly who owned the club. Bates, the club's chairman, has bought out FSF Limited through his company Outro Limited, Leeds confirmed in a statement yesterday.Leeds say they hope the move will bring an end to "scaremongering" about the mystery of the ownership and "delivers the transparency sought". An inquiry into football by a committee of MPs had put Leeds' ownership under the spotlight and the Premier League had said they would require full disclosure of the shareholders of the three offshore trusts that had owned FSF Limited.

Leeds said in a statement: "The scaremongering arising out of the football governance inquiry has not been helpful and, whilst the board were always confident that there were no issues, recognise the concern the unknown outcome of any Premier League questions may have on our members. To address this issue... the chairman, Ken Bates, has completed the purchase of FSF Limited." The statement claimed there had been a "political obsession" over Leeds' ownership.

The Leeds chief executive, Shaun Harvey, gave evidence to the inquiry in March where he told MPs the club's owners were a holding company called FSF Limited based in the West Indian island of Nevis, owned by three discretionary trusts. Harvey said neither he, nor to his knowledge Bates, knew who the shareholders of the trusts were.