Two significant players jumped off the train in Leeds city centre this week and neither of them was Lee Bowyer or Jonathon Woodgate. These were players, not in the football sense, but as in movers and shakers.

Max Clifford was one, the celebrated London publicity guru who can make black look white. Imran Khan, not the cricketer but the lawyer of the family of Stephen Lawrence, the murdered black London teenager, was the other. He is interested in issues of black and white.

Football is rarely the first association people make when the names of Clifford and Khan come up in conversation, but recent events at Leeds have altered a lot of preconceptions, not all of them for the bad. The latest news, however, means Khan in particular has a direct involvement in the future of Leeds United.

Khan is now part of the legal team of Sarfraz Najeib, the victim in the sinister racial attack outside the Majestyk nightclub in Leeds a fortnight ago that left the 19-year-old Asian student in hospital with broken ribs, a broken leg and serious head wounds. Bowyer and Woodgate were questioned about the assault and are now free only on police bail. Things could get a lot worse.

Superficially, it has the appearance of a black and white incident, although, officially at least, for Leeds United it remains a grey area.

Privately, it seems most likely that Leeds hold a very different opinion about the matter, but, as David O'Leary said after last Sunday's 2-1 victory at Sunderland in which both Bowyer and Woodgate played, until he hears otherwise he will continue to select the two.

As of early yesterday afternoon O'Leary had not heard otherwise, or was not saying if he had. Then, at Leeds's Thorp Arch training-ground, ominously set opposite a prison deep in the Yorkshire countryside, O'Leary made it obvious that questions concerning Bowyer and Woodgate would receive no reply.

For him little can have changed in the past six days - though Leeds police announced that their investigation was focusing on race rather than alcohol - which means that when Leeds take the field at Villa Park tomorrow afternoon Bowyer and Woodgate will be in the ranks.

This could be the situation for the next few weeks, which, given that Leeds's next four opponents are Aston Villa, Liverpool, Spurs and Manchester United, is a major plus for the club. That is on the pitch.

Off it, the continued presence of Bowyer and Woodgate in O'Leary's squad means an unwanted spotlight will remain on. Sleep will be difficult.

As police inquiries proceed, the heat will grow stronger and, if the two are found to be guilty of assault or worse, then Leeds's season will have become a tale of O'Leary, architecture and morality. It is inevitable that some deconstruction would have to follow. A jail sentence is a real possibility for the two players.

In football terms, that would be a shame, not least for O'Leary. An elusive character to assess, a combination of saccharine charm and marble impenetrability, what cannot be doubted is that O'Leary has been the hands-on foreman behind the reconstruction of a side that, until the events of a fortnight ago, were the team of the season.

O'Leary has bought well, especially Michael Bridges and Eirik Bakke; his vision has been bold, witness the freedom given Harry Kewell and Stephen McPhail; and his approach has been attacking and easy on the eye.

All this has been cemented with a remarkable team spirit noticeable to anyone who attended pre-season fixtures at abrasive places like Doncaster Rovers. These boys quite clearly get on.

That collective zest was one of the reasons behind Alex Ferguson labelling Leeds as "the emerging team" before the start of the season, and yesterday the Manchester United manager had further kind words for the club whose fans hate him most.

"David O'Leary has shown in a very short time as manager that he has an extremely bright future," said Ferguson.

"There is a danger with young players, in that it is all very well them shining at youth and reserve team level, but the acid test is whether or not they can do it at senior level. "When to give them that opportunity is one of the most testing examinations of a manager's judgment and, in Leeds United's case, they have a manager who has shown great courage in believing that if they are good enough they are old enough and allowed them to take the plunge."

One example of O'Leary's willingness to put his teamsheet where his mouth was is McPhail. Fourteen months ago, six weeks short of his 19th birthday, McPhail was handed his full debut in the daunting arena of the Olympic Stadium in Rome, at which time Leeds were still pursuing the signature of Martin O'Neill. Offended or not by this, O'Leary didn't blink.

"I've just got a great belief in Stephen," he said referring to that Roma game. "I think he's a wonderful player. When I took over I told him where he had to improve, his fitness-level, his mobility. He's become mentally stronger.

"When we do running and everything else, mentally he's able to cope with that better now instead of telling himself maybe he was not able to keep up with certain other players. He can now, and it's showing on the pitch."

McPhail has consistently justified his manager's faith, with last Sunday's beautiful pass to Jason Wilcox the latest offering, and O'Leary thinks his young midfielder deserves a Republic of Ireland call-up for the match against the Czech Republic in February.

"Personally, I think he should have been called up ages ago," O'Leary said. "I think he should have been in the squad for the Turkey game. I'm not trying to tell Mick McCarthy what to do, I don't mean it like that, but Stephen's been playing in my front line and without a doubt he's ready for it. If he's playing in Leeds United's first team at the top of the league, he's ready." Youthful readiness to overcome challenge after challenge has been a theme of O'Leary's Leeds. It has taken them to the top of the Premiership and made them friends, something they were unused to outside fortress Elland Road.

The popularity was all the more welcome because of the contrast with the past. It prompted David Batty to say: "We're starting to become the neutrals' team like Newcastle were. That can't be compared with the past. People are going to see us to see a good game."

Leeds's public image was changing.

But that was before the Majestyk nightclub reared its stupidly-spelt head. The exact details of the evening remain uncertain but the fall-out is becoming clearer. For Bowyer (23), possible selection for Euro 2000 is fading. Kevin Keegan must be angry about that, for Bowyer, as he showed last Sunday, brings a lot more to a football contest than Tim Sherwood or Jamie Redknapp, for example. Yet Redknapp is reliable and predictable - in more ways than one.

At 20, Woodgate has a little more time on his side but is unlikely to go to Holland and Belgium if charged by the police. He was part of an interesting scene at Thorp Arch yesterday when he gave one of the Leeds apprentices a lift in his car. The apprentice is black.

And that must be one of the most difficult problems O'Leary has to reconcile, the multi-cultural diversity of his squad and perceived racists within it. What, for instance, does Bowyer say to Harpal Singh, the Leeds teenager who may be the first Asian to play in the Premiership? If Imran Khan and the courts are involved, remorse may be too late.

Which brings us back to Max Clifford, maybe he could help the club. "If these allegations were to be substantiated," Clifford said in Leeds on Thursday, "then Leeds United would have to make an example of the players."

Maybe not. Even Clifford recognises this as a subject beyond football and beyond Leeds United.