Leeds United earned promotion to the Premier League by winning the Championship last season. However, the team that ended the club’s decade-and-a-half wait to return to the top flight in 2020 will go down as legends for the part they played in that historic season.
Marcelo Bielsa and the Leeds United players who earned promotion in 2020 are cult heroes at Elland Road because they waited for the club’s long wait to return to the Premier League. They will always have a special place in the hearts of the Leeds faithful.
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That Leeds team came up and also put on a show in the Premier League, finishing in the top half of the table in their first season back in the top flight. They were eventually relegated in 2023, but those players remain heroes for the Leeds fans.
One of the players has been keen to return to English football after spending one season in Europe, but his move to the Championship has been blocked.
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Former Leeds United captain blocked from a return to the Championship
Cooper left Leeds in 2024 and joined CSKA Sofia on a free transfer, signing one of the biggest contracts in Bulgarian football in the process.
After agreeing to a mutual contract termination in the summer, the 34-year-old has been eyeing a long-awaited return to English football this season.
Sheffield Wednesday had a deal lined up to sign him on a free transfer, but according to The Star, the Owls have been blocked from signing the former Leeds defender.
The Championship club were placed under a transfer embargo in the summer after the club failed to pay the players’ wages.
A spiralling financial situation saw Sheffield Wednesday lose a bulk of their players in the summer. But they were denied from signing anyone until Dejphon Chansiri could prove his ability to fund the club going forward.
Wednesday felt they would be able to sign players on a free transfer after the end of the window. However, the EFL has put them under fresh restrictions, which prevent them from signing free agents as well.
Cooper thought that he was set to return to English football with the Owls, but that deal has been blocked by the EFL.
Outside a window, clubs under embargo can only sign free agents when they have fewer than 16 ‘permitted players’ – players with three or more league starts at a club’s current level or higher over the course of their career. Wednesday already have 16 of them on their books.
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