Peter Ridsdale - United We Fall

United We Fall

In November 2007 Ridsdale released the book United We Fall: Boardroom Truths About the Beautiful Game making claims about incidents which had contributed to the downfall of Leeds United in the mid-2000s. Extracts were printed in The Sun and on their on-line page. Ridsdale made the following claims:

1. Former Leeds manager David O'Leary had a large role in "a secret deal with bung agent Rune Hauge that ultimately landed the disgraced Norwegian £1.75million". The claims were in regard to the deal that brought Rio Ferdinand to Leeds.
2. Before O'Leary had left the club he had "lost the dressing room" and this was the real reason for his sacking in the summer of 2002. Several players had stated that "they’d be looking to move elsewhere if O’Leary remained as manager for the 2002–03 season" including Paul Robinson who had stated after being dropped for a match "I’ll never play for that b*****d again".
3. Football agent Pino Pagliari had "offered the illicit payment when Robbie Keane moved to Tottenham in 2002" to submit an "invoice for ‘agent services’" for £600,000. In return for Ridsdale allowing this the fee would be split 50:50 between the two of them, however Ridsdale refused and reported the offer to his board, for future reference so to never deal with the agent.
4. Martin O'Neill had signed a contract in January 2003 to become manager of Leeds as soon as Celtic would release him from his contract. He would have taken over from then manager Terry Venables however Venables' team at the time went on a seven game winning run. The contract had a clause requiring that Ridsdale be Chairman when O'Neill took over; however pressure from fans led to Ridsdale leaving before Venables was sacked, so O'Neill never took charge.

When responding to these claims David O'Leary called Ridsdale "deranged" and suggested that he was 'two faced' with his comments compared to how the pair's relationship had continued since both had left Leeds.

O'Neill later responded to the claims regarding him stating that he had taken part in discussions with Ridsdale and had signed a conditional statement but "he insists that nothing legally-binding was put in place".