"What we need is for clubs to undertake proper risk assessment and financial planning and to pursue partnership with their supporters and local communities in order to avoid these crisis situations from emerging in the first place," said Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association in the report preface.
"Good corporate governance is essential if clubs are to be managed effectively and to survive in the difficult economic circumstances surrounding the football industry," it said.
Christine Oughton, a professor of management and a co-author, said: "The establishment of a best practice code, tailored specifically to the football industry, would help improve their governance structures and procedures, which would in turn help their corporate performance."
Leeds are not the only ones. Despite a substantial rise in turnover, only a fifth of Football League clubs and just over a quarter of premier league clubs made profits in the 2001/2002 season, according to consultants Deloitte and Touche.
In the past 11 years 34 clubs have become insolvent but none has yet gone under, thanks to the backing of supporters.