Andrea Radrizzani remains in it for the long haul at Leeds United despite the growing 49ers Enterprises influence at Elland Road, according to board member Massimo Marinelli.
In December, The Athletic reported the investment arm of San Francisco 49ers had already agreed a total package worth more than £400m to take full control of the Whites by January 2024.
With less than two years to run on that option and the club’s Premier League status in jeopardy, Radrizzani sacked iconic head coach Marcelo Bielsa nine days ago.
That decision and Radrizzani’s comments afterwards reiterated his desire to make tough choices he feels are for the benefit of the club while he is in charge.
In the days after that decision, Marinelli, who is the chief executive officer at Radrizzani’s Aser Ventures firm and United board member since May 2021, spoke about the 49ers influence.
Marinelli stressed Radrizzani and Aser were not leaving Leeds behind any time soon.
"The 49ers are a strong partner of ours and they have been investing and increasing their stake, as is public, over a certain period of time,” he told the Financial Times' Business of Football Summit.
“Aser is 100 per cent committed to Leeds United and is here to stay. There was some press speculation around what may or may not happen, but at the moment the focus is on what it is the club needs.
"The 49ers relationship is very, very open and is also about what sort of things you can bring to the club in terms of additional commercial opportunities and commercial knowledge.
"They have a strong team behind them and our relationship with them, Paraag [Marathe], Jed [York] and the team is ongoing daily, we have daily conversations with them on what we can do to improve the club.
"They have gone through the process of developing a stadium, they have a very strong business and analytics team that will be very useful when we think about growing revenues, so there is a lot of opportunities to do more, which is also at the core of when you hear about multi-club strategies."
