Leeds United say they are close to agreeing an extension with creditors that would stave off the threat of administration, after a lacklustre weekend defeat sent the heavily indebted team to the bottom of the premier league.Leeds lost 2-1 to Southampton on Saturday, while fellow relegation candidates Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Manchester United to go above them, two days before a Monday deadline to reach an agreement with creditors over debt repayments.“We are very close to reaching an agreement with the principal creditors that will give us an extension of at least a week to enable us to put the funds in place to fund the club for the rest of the season,” chief executive Trevor Birch said on Sunday.“We have some certainty then. We are either still in the premier league or relegated and both scenarios provide different solutions.”The club has accumulated debts of over 80 million pounds ($145 million) after a high-risk player buying spree, most of which is owed to American firms MetLife and Teachers and British company M&G. An extension would give Leeds time to sell more players in the January transfer window. Strikers Mark Viduka and Alan Smith and goalkeeper Paul Robinson have been linked with moves away from the club.Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Mubarak al-Khalifa, a member of Bahrain’s royal family, and Chinese businessman Xu Ming have been reported as interested in investing in the club. Leeds’s ex-chairman John McKenzie and ex-deputy chairman Allan Leighton are also exploring a possible rescue. Leeds, who have won just four of their 22 league games this season, conceded two first-half goals to Southampton before rallying in the second half when defender Matthew Kilgallon scored his first career goal.But they were unable to equalise and caretaker manager Eddie Gray was not over-optimistic about their prospects of remaining in England’s top flight, which they have occupied since 1990.“It’s going to be very difficult now,” Gray said. “These are the types of games and places we’ve got to come to and get results and it never happened.”Unless Leeds can break out of the premier league’s bottom three, relegation to the significantly less lucrative first division looms — making the club less attractive to potential financial rescuers.If their negotiations fail, the club best known for its trophy winning team of the 1970s could become the first premier league side to be forced into administration.
