Chaos and contempt at Leeds as one of English football's most famous clubs falls into the hands of an Italian fraudster
Mail 2/2/14By Nick Harris
They jeered, they chanted their protests and they waved their shoes in the air in contempt. For once, the sight of their team running up a 5-1 victory over their rivals from a handful of miles away down the M62 was not the most important thing on the minds of Leeds United's passionate support.
Their famous old ground, Elland Road, witnessed some extraordinary scenes in the club's Seventies heyday under Don Revie, but it has surely seen nothing like the chaos on Saturday that surrounded the club's prospective takeover by a man with convictions for fraud and false accounting - and who faces trial in his homeland, Italy, for alleged embezzlement.
If the shoe-waving gesture, popularised in the uprisings of the Arab Spring as a sign of disrespect, was any guide, then the Leeds faithful are long past restless and in revolt over the imminent arrival of Massimo Cellino as their latest - and surely most controversial - owner.
As his players blitzed Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield Town, the name of manager Brian McDermott - sacked on Friday but then 'unsacked' on saturday, as if it had never happened - was sung all afternoon. Banners implored 'Bring Back Brian' and 'Cellino No!' and the club's current owners, GFH Capital, were vilified in chants.
Fans took off their shoes and waved them in the air in response to the refrain 'Shoes off if you hate GFH', and when play got under way a chorus of 'You don't know what you're doing' echoed round the ground. This chaotic new chapter in the turbulent recent history of Leeds United marked the prospect of the club falling into the hands of a man wreaking havoc even before his proposed takeover is even complete.
On Saturday GFH Capital announced that a deal had been done in principle to sell 75 per cent of the club to Eleonara Sport Ltd, a company owned by the family of the controversial Miami-based Cellino. This followed a frenzied 24-hour period in which a lawyer working for the Italian sacked McDermott and the club's deputy chief executive, Paul Hunt, with Cellino claiming he had 'no choice' because of McDermott's alleged negative attitude to his imminent takeover plans.
The club's managing director, David Haigh - a GFH employee - briefly quit the club on Friday, apparently in protest at Cellino's actions, only to change his mind and attend yesterday's match.
Sources say Cellino was so stung by social media anger towards him on Friday that he subsequently made efforts to persuade McDermott to go back. The League Managers' Association released a statement saying McDermott had been told his sacking had been made without authority and was awaiting clarification. But McDermott is understood to have no intention of staying at the club under Cellino, not least because the Italian, who owns Serie A club Cagliari, has already tried to impose his wishes, McDermott refusing to accept that a Cellino employee, former Middlesbrough and Portsmouth defender Gianluca Festa, could sit with him in the dugout last week.
In a further twist on Saturday night, the club claimed in a statement that McDermott was still their first-team manager, despite his non-appearance at the Yorkshire derby when academy coach Neil Redfearn and McDermott's assistant, Nigel Gibbs, were in charge.
As chaos and confusion swept the city's football community yesterday, thousands of supporters called for the re-instatement of McDermott and mounted police monitored angry scenes outside Elland Road. Leeds captain Ross McCormack was loudly cheered when his name was announced. McCormack had voiced strong support for McDermott and he went on to score a memorable hat-trick as Huddersfield were steamrollered.
The Football League, who must approve the new owners, declined to discuss Cellino but a League spokesman said last night that they have started 'preliminary conversations' with the Italian's lawyers about his proposed takeover. 'We have made Eleonora Sport Ltd aware of our requirements relating to the change of ownership at Championship clubs,' said a statement.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that underpinning the unfolding saga that is tearing apart one of England's famous old clubs is a financial crisis that could yet see them plunged back into monetary meltdown - perhaps even administration. Sources with knowledge of the club's financial position say debts are becoming 'unmanageable' and losses, projected to be in the 'mid-teens of millions' for the current season, are such that Leeds 'may be not viable much longer without new cash'.
Another source suggested that unless a deal is completed quickly, Leeds 'could be about to go under, big time'. The club declined to make any official comment although a source close to the owners confirmed that 'the financial pressures are telling'.
This helps to explain why an owner as apparently unfit as Cellino is being considered as a custodian for Leeds, three-times former champions of England and Champions League contenders as recently as 2001, when they reached the semi-finals of Europe's top club competition.
What happened next has gone down in football lore as a textbook case of how not to run a football club. Leeds had taken a £60m loan, a catastrophic gamble to 'live the dream' that failed. They entered a spiral of decline, on and off the pitch, plunging to relegation, then administration, then a second drop, to League One.
Ken Bates, who made a fortune selling Chelsea to Roman Abramovich, was the owner at Leeds' lowest ebb, and he eventually sold the club, after a long period of seeking a buyer, to GFH Capital in December 2012. Haigh and a GFH colleague, Salem Patel, spoke of great days ahead, Patel promising that the cash was 'in place' to make Leeds 'a success'. In fact, it was not.
GFH, owned by Bahrain bank Gulf Finance House, looked to sell stakes in the club and find investors with capital for a promotion push. They struggled. Numerous PR initiatives bought them time and fan support but to date they have found no-one willing to invest on their terms. Until Cellino. But an air of chaos envelops Elland Road. Cellino spoke out on Friday evening about his reasons for having McDermott sacked - even before he was officially in control.
'I spoke with Brian earlier in the week and gave him the chance for the challenge,' said Cellino. 'I don't know him, but told him I would be coming in and he would have the chance to build something special and work with a lot of money. In the end we didn't have any choice because he did everything to get fired. He gave me no choice. He started an argument with everyone. He was talking with the papers, with everyone, which was not fair. He made it impossible.' The U-turn by Cellino, even before he is in charge, only adds to the confusion.
With the Football League's rules prohibiting owners with criminal convictions, it seems unclear how Cellino can take over. He was convicted in the late Nineties of deceiving the EU and the Italian Ministry for Agriculture out of £7.5m and received a reduced and suspended 14-month sentence following a plea bargain. Then in 2001 he was given a 15-month suspended sentence for false accounting at Cagliari.
He is yet to stand trial on charges of alleged embezzlement over his club's stadium rebuilding.
One possibility at Leeds is that he will not personally play a role beyond funding and so will not need the League's approval. If the league reject him, GFH will seek another buyer, perhaps turning to a consortium led by former Manchester United director Mike Farnam, who have already had one £12m bid rejected as 'derisory'.
Leeds' parlous state is made worse because two of the club's main sponsors, Enterprise Insurance and Flamingo Land, have said they will withdraw their backing in protest at Cellino. The fans' motto and battle cry has for decades been 'Marching on Together'. Stumbling may now be more appropriate.