Leeds United did not need to sell Archie Gray to Tottenham Hotspur to balance the books this summer, with the decision to leave the club ultimately the player's. That's the verdict of Leeds CEO Angus Kinnear, who in a wide-ranging interview with The Square Ball podcast, has given an insight into the deal which took Leeds' brightest young talent to Tottenham Hotspur for £40m.
The 18-year-old's transfer to Tottenham in the summer was the one deal that hit hardest for the Leeds supporters as they watched a homegrown talent with a close family connection to the club, sold for what looked like a necessary deal as Leeds scrambled to avoid breaking Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
Kinnear admits sales were needed at Leeds this summer, but says two sales from a list of players would have sufficed and Gray's sale, while financially beneficial, was not necessary and the club had not planned on losing their prized teenage asset.
"Leeds United didn't approach any club to sell Archie Gray," explained Kinnear. "Normally you offer a player around or speak to the agent, we could have kept Archie Gray.
"The deal is life changing and Archie and his dad handled the situation impeccably. He wasn't forced out and we said if it doesn't feel right come back and train, but we don't begrudge him that move."
Ultimately the money from the sale of Gray to Spurs allowed Leeds to manage their PSR responsibilities, with Kinnear explaining the benefits of selling a player such as Gray.
He added: "Archie is very valuable from a PSR perspective because he's academy produced so there's no amortisation, there's no book value to him at all. So all of the revenue generated from the sale goes to hit the PSR target.
"The PSR targets are really cruel. To come down from a world were you have a gap from one three-year rolling number to another three-year rolling number, plus the fact you lose all your TV revenue makes it really challenging to stay within those limits, which we have done, but the only way is to sell players."
Kinnear also went on to explain how two sales of other squad players would have also allowed Leeds to meet their PSR target. Kinnear explained; "Two key sales would have done it, it didn't need to be before June 30. We didn't have to sell Archie Gray.
"It could have been Pascal, Willie, Max Wober, but the reality is when you get relegated ever single club has to sell players. We didn't need cash, but there was a PSR gap and we had the issue of players wanting to leave."
Placing the decision firmly in the Gray camp for him to leave the club, Kinnear is keen to point out the teenager left with the blessings of everyone and they understood how he couldn't turn down the chance to go to one of the Premier League's big six with European football awaiting.
The Leeds CEO also revealed how the Whites had fought off competition from two European giants and a host of Premier League teams to get Gray to sign his last contract at Elland Road just months earlier.
"Archie Gray is one of the greatest English talents in the game at the moment," concluded Kinnear.. "When he is signing a new contract he and his representatives are not prepared to be trapped in the Championship, they are just not.
"At that time when we did that new contract Archie Gray could have joined any club in the country. Real Madrid were interested in Archie Gray, Bayern Munich were interested. the way we were able to keep him was threefold.
"One we have him a rather attractive financial offer which matches what he would have been offered in the Premier League. The second was we levied the pathway into the first team which we felt he had at Leeds United and the fact he had a relationship with the club.
"We also had to construct a contract which he was happy with and wasn't going to block what he saw as his natural development. If you don't do that you simply lose them. Archie Gray is a player who will ultimately play for Real Madrid or Bayern Munich."