Ken Bates

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Ken Bates (born December 4, 1931 in Ealing ) is an English football official and entrepreneur.

Life

Bates was born in Ealing, a suburb of London . The mother died right after Ken was born, and since the father also ran away, Ken was raised by his grandparents. As an adolescent he was a supporter of the Queens Park Rangers and he also aspired to a football career, but it quickly became apparent that Bates had too little talent for it. He initially earned his living in a freight forwarding company and later in quarries, concrete companies and dairies. The Englishman was involved in a wide variety of business ventures in the 1960s and 1970s - including a project in the British Virgin Islands and the establishment of the Irish Trust Bank , which was sealed in 1976 and ultimately brought a large number of Irish small investors into financial difficulties. Bates has been married twice and has five children. He currently lives in the tax haven of Monaco and, according to British tax law, is allowed to spend a maximum of ninety days per calendar year in his home country Great Britain .

Activities in football

The entrepreneur had his first post as president of a football club in the 1960s at Oldham Athletic . During this time he was also a short-term chairman of Wigan Athletic . In 1982 Bates bought Chelsea FC for the symbolic sum of one pound . When he took over the club, the Blues were in dire financial straits and had significant problems with hooligans among their own following. In his time these problems were eliminated, but the negative side of his engagement was mainly reflected in the fact that he changed coaches in an above-average manner, many of them due to controversial circumstances. Bates was President of the Blues until March 2004 - Roman Abramowitsch then took over the club - and made Chelsea FC an integral part of the English Premier League . The club won it under his reign in 1997 and 2000 the English Cup and again in 1998 the League Cup . At the European level, Chelsea was able to show successes under Bates in 1998 by winning the European Cup Winners' Cup and the Supercup . However, by the end of his tenure, Chelsea had around £ 80m in debt.

At the same time, Bates was also involved in the construction of the new Wembley Stadium and was chairman of "Wembley National Stadium Ltd." from 1997 to 2001. In January 2005, Ken Bates bought 50 percent of the traditional English club Leeds United and secured the presidency of the financially troubled club.