Ken Bates is the former Chelsea chairman and current Leeds United majority shareholder and chairman. He was the majority shareholder of Chelsea from 1982 when he bought the club for £1, until he sold his stake to Roman Abramovich for £17m in 2003.
Bates made his money in the haulage industry before diversifying into quarrying, ready mix concrete and eventually dairy farming. He was no stranger to controversy before he entered football - his Irish trust bank venture left thousands investors out of pocket. Bates cut his teeth in football as the chairman of Oldham Athletic, and then Wigan Athletic but came to prominence as Chelsea supremo when he campaigned for electric fences at football grounds to control fans. Unsuprisingly, this made him a hugely unpopular figure up and down the country and alienated him from his own fans. Thankfully for them his proposals were vetoed by the Greater London Council due to health and safety issues.
During the mid 1990’s Bates had steered Chelsea into a mountain of debt and was desperately attempting to curb the sale of the prime real estate that is Stamford Bridge. At this point Bates called for further investors to save the club, and in 1994 Mathew Harding answered his call and became vice-chairman. The honeymoon didn’t last long. A bitter dispute erupted between the two which threatened to tear the club apart; Bates ultimately banning Harding from the Chelsea boardroom. The dispute was ended by the untimely death of Harding in a helicopter crash in 1996, but even after his death Bates still declared his former partner ‘an evil man’.
By 2003 Chelsea were enjoying unparalleled success on the pitch, but off the field the pitcure wasn’t so rosy with Chelsea’s debt hitting £80m. At this point Bates was only too happy to offload the club to Roman Abramovich and secure a £17m profit for himself, as well as retaining his position as Chairman. He later resigned as chairman in March 2004 before buying into financially crippled Leeds United for £10m. His short tenure at Leeds has already been controversial after he liquidated the club to rid them of £35m of debt, and then subsequently bought the club back from creditors for a bargain 1p in the pound, whilst the team suffered a 10 point penalty going into the next season.
Bates is currently a tax exile choosing to live in Monaco rather than pay what he owes to the UK taxman; and is therefore only allowed to reside in England for 90 days of the year. 90 days too many?
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