Under-fire Leeds chairman Ridsdale quits

Leeds United parted company with their under-fire chairman Peter Ridsdale as the English Premiership side geared up to fight off relegation.

Ridsdale's departure accompanied interim results for the six months ending on December 31, 2002, which showed the club lost 17.2 million pounds before tax while the total net debt to the end of last year was 78.9 million pounds (120 million dollars).

"The figures for the past half year are disappointing and reflect the fact that we missed out for the second year running on qualification for the Champions League," Ridsdale said in a statement.

And Professor John McKenzie, who took over from Ridsdale, said the club, which sacked Terry Venables 10 days ago after eight months as manager after the club had slumped to 16th in the Premiership, admitted he faced a challenge of avoiding relegation and balancing the books.

"The priority for the club is to focus on avoiding relegation then to balance the obvious need for even greater financial prudence and control with the ability to produce a football squad which has the capability of competing in the top echelon of the Premiership," he said.

"It will be a very tough challenge to take the business forward in this way but it is one that I relish."

Ridsdale has been under heavy criticism from supporters after selling off a batch of star players to pay off debts.

"In a high profile role, when results are not up to expectation levels, you rightly expect criticism," he said.

"The intensity of personal criticism has led me to conclude that the best decision for myself, my family and the company is that I step down as chairman of the plc and football club and relinquish all executive responsibilities."

The club sacked Venables 10 days ago after just eight months in charge and replaced him with former Sunderland boss Peter Reid.

Venables took over from high-spending David O'Leary but he soon found the club was desperate to sell players to pay off their debts.

Venables was unable to prevent Ridsdale selling a batch of first-team players in an attempt to solve the club's financial crisis.

Within a fortnight of Venables taking over star defender Rio Ferdinand was sold to rivals Manchester United for 30 million pounds.

Robbie Keane went to Tottenham, Olivier Dacourt was loaned out to Roma, Lee Bowyer sold to West Ham, Robbie Fowler sold to Manchester City and finally Jonathan Woodgate was offloaded to Newcastle for 8 million pounds.

Shareholders nevertheless re-elected Ridsdale as Leeds chairman by a record majority in November, as he pledged to bring stability to the club.

But negotiations over O'Leary's severance settlement - believed to be a seven-figure sum - rumbled on for several months before the final straw came in the shape of the sale of Woodgate to Newcastle.

Venables had received assurances from Ridsdale that no other star players would be sold so when Woodgate was offloaded supporters vented their anger at Ridsdale.

The former England manager was set to get a two million pound conpensation payment from Leeds who revealed in their interim results Monday that was the size of his yearly salary.

The results confirm that the compensation payable upon termination of his contract could be "equivalent to 12 months' notice".