Was the middleman and accepted team leader's thought (9)
I believe the answer is:
meditated
'thought' is the definition.
(meditating is a kind of thinking)
'was the middleman and accepted team leader's' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is present in the answer.
'accepted' could be 'a' (financial abbreviation) and 'a' is found in the answer.
'leader' could be 'e' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'e' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for meditated that I've seen before include "Engaged in religious contemplation" , "thought" , "pondered" , "Engaged in spiritual contemplation" .)