Leeds United’s chairman Andrea Radrizzani offered to use the club’s Elland Road stadium as security for a £26million bank loan which his company, Aser, and a bidding partner, Gestio Capital, intended to use to complete a takeover of the Italian club Sampdoria.
Under a heads of terms agreement co-signed by Radrizzani — essentially an agreement in principle — Elland Road would act as collateral as part of a deal by Radrizzani’s Aser and his bidding partner Gestio Capital to borrow €30m (£25.8m; $32.1m) from Italian bank Banca Sistema, helping to fund their Sampdoria buy-out.
Leeds were only relegated from the Premier League to the Championship on Sunday afternoon but their majority owner Radrizzani was not present at the final match of the campaign as he instead sought to finalise an agreement for Sampdoria.
