The Last Word: Brian McDermott’s monstrous treatment highlights the meltdown at Leeds
Independent 1/2/14
Leeds United exemplify a culture of amorality and incompetence
Michael Calvin
Brian McDermott is a man of unchallenged integrity and unforced dignity. He is a football manager of genuine stature. He was systematically undermined before being sacked over the telephone on Friday night by a lawyer of whom he had never heard.
David Haigh is the public face of Gulf Finance House, a Bahraini investment bank whose speculative purchase of Leeds United from Ken Bates has damaged their reputation and threatens their share price. He fronted a takeover attempt which collapsed on Thursday, stepped down on Friday and was reinstated as the club’s managing director yesterday.
He emerged as a key figure in a uniquely bizarre development last night in which Leeds released a statement insisting that “Brian McDermott remains our first-team manager”. It is uncertain for how long given the previous antipathy of Massimo Cellino, who is now the prospective new owner of Leeds. An agricultural entrepreneur who has fired 35 head coaches in 21 years at Cagliari, the Serie A club, Cellino has twice been convicted of fraudulent offences, and faces a third trial on embezzlement charges.
Shaun Harvey is chief executive of the Football League, which must approve the £25m purchase of a controlling 75 per cent stake in Leeds by Eleonora Sport Ltd, a company owned by the Cellino family. He spent nine controversial years in a similar role at Elland Road, where one of his last major decisions was to appoint McDermott.
And so the circle is squared. If a man of Cellino’s character and reputation can pass the League’s so-called Owners and Directors Test, its 96 sections, countless sub-clauses and 10 reasons for disqualification are not worth the paper on which they are written.
McDermott has been treated monstrously in a case which crystalises key issues and critical failures of leadership. The League cannot be trusted to save clubs from themselves. Harvey, a pivotal figure in the Bates administration, appears hopelessly compromised. Leeds United exemplify football’s culture of amorality, duplicity and incompetence.
Let’s call it the Curse of Ridsdale’s Goldfish. The myth of a club which trades on their former prominence was exposed by the wasteland which confronted McDermott when he arrived late last April with a supposedly strategic brief to rebuild Leeds from the bottom up over three years.
Haigh quickly imposed a two-year deadline for a return to the Premier League, but initial promises of appropriate funding for squad development were not kept. The club had no scouting system and lacked basic performance-related tools, such as Prozone software.
The main training pitch was under-sized and drained so poorly it was rarely useable. A previous regime had cut down surrounding trees to enable the manager to watch from his second-floor office without braving the elements.
Neil Warnock’s pragmatism, in signing experienced players on large contracts in the hope GFH would secure additional investment, resulted in an unbalanced, ageing squad. McDermott inherited three left- backs but no central defenders, a plethora of midfielders but no wingers. He was forced to look for free transfers and gamble on prospects from the lower divisions. He re-established links with the Academy, raising morale and unearthing a real talent in Alex Mowatt. By the end, he was selecting young players earning £200 a week.
Management has always been a charnel house, and had McDermott been sacked after punishing defeats by Rochdale and Sheffield Wednesday, the football world would have shrugged and moved on. But the callous and cowardly nature of his dismissal, enacted without the knowledge of existing board members, demands scrutiny.
Cellino and his advisers, including son Ercole, arrived at the club 10 days ago. His disdain for McDermott, whom he met in strained circumstances, was obvious. The former Middlesbrough defender Gianluca Festa brazenly watched two training sessions. Cellino’s request that Festa be allowed alongside McDermott on the bench during Tuesday’s game against Ipswich was rejected. Paul Hunt, sacked by Venky’s as Blackburn’s deputy CEO last year, was dismissed as Leeds’ acting chief executive in the aftermath of the manager’s departure.
GFH did not respond to suggestions they gave Cellino, previously linked with West Ham and Crystal Palace, control without waiting for his payment to clear. The Italian has promised to buy back Elland Road. Cagliari loaned playmaker Andrea Tabanelli to Leeds on Friday night, without releasing details.
Two major sponsors walked away, highlighting fears of a financial meltdown. The poisonous atmosphere preceding yesterday’s Yorkshire derby against Huddersfield Town was inevitable given police provided Cellino with a protective escort away from the ground at 11.15pm on Friday.
Rarely has regime change been so shameless and shambolic. McDermott’s human touches, such as allowing staff to bring children into offices during school holidays, will be much missed. A climate of fear and confusion has returned.
Festa kept a low profile yesterday, despite initial indications he had changed the team selected the previous day by McDermott, who was not at the game but whose name was chanted throughout a suitably perverse 5-1 win. Nigel Gibbs, McDermott’s assistant, was told by Haigh at 12.15 yesterday that he was in charge and intends to report for work as normal tomorrow.
Appropriately enough, Leeds imploded on transfer-deadline night, that biannual orgy of greed, self-importance and superficial glamour. While TV’s posturing ninnies wittered on, immune to the significance of events at Elland Road, the game lost a little more of its credibility.
Fit and proper persons? They are few and far between.
Leeds United exemplify a culture of amorality and incompetence
Michael Calvin
Brian McDermott is a man of unchallenged integrity and unforced dignity. He is a football manager of genuine stature. He was systematically undermined before being sacked over the telephone on Friday night by a lawyer of whom he had never heard.
David Haigh is the public face of Gulf Finance House, a Bahraini investment bank whose speculative purchase of Leeds United from Ken Bates has damaged their reputation and threatens their share price. He fronted a takeover attempt which collapsed on Thursday, stepped down on Friday and was reinstated as the club’s managing director yesterday.
He emerged as a key figure in a uniquely bizarre development last night in which Leeds released a statement insisting that “Brian McDermott remains our first-team manager”. It is uncertain for how long given the previous antipathy of Massimo Cellino, who is now the prospective new owner of Leeds. An agricultural entrepreneur who has fired 35 head coaches in 21 years at Cagliari, the Serie A club, Cellino has twice been convicted of fraudulent offences, and faces a third trial on embezzlement charges.
Shaun Harvey is chief executive of the Football League, which must approve the £25m purchase of a controlling 75 per cent stake in Leeds by Eleonora Sport Ltd, a company owned by the Cellino family. He spent nine controversial years in a similar role at Elland Road, where one of his last major decisions was to appoint McDermott.
And so the circle is squared. If a man of Cellino’s character and reputation can pass the League’s so-called Owners and Directors Test, its 96 sections, countless sub-clauses and 10 reasons for disqualification are not worth the paper on which they are written.
McDermott has been treated monstrously in a case which crystalises key issues and critical failures of leadership. The League cannot be trusted to save clubs from themselves. Harvey, a pivotal figure in the Bates administration, appears hopelessly compromised. Leeds United exemplify football’s culture of amorality, duplicity and incompetence.
Let’s call it the Curse of Ridsdale’s Goldfish. The myth of a club which trades on their former prominence was exposed by the wasteland which confronted McDermott when he arrived late last April with a supposedly strategic brief to rebuild Leeds from the bottom up over three years.
Haigh quickly imposed a two-year deadline for a return to the Premier League, but initial promises of appropriate funding for squad development were not kept. The club had no scouting system and lacked basic performance-related tools, such as Prozone software.
The main training pitch was under-sized and drained so poorly it was rarely useable. A previous regime had cut down surrounding trees to enable the manager to watch from his second-floor office without braving the elements.
Neil Warnock’s pragmatism, in signing experienced players on large contracts in the hope GFH would secure additional investment, resulted in an unbalanced, ageing squad. McDermott inherited three left- backs but no central defenders, a plethora of midfielders but no wingers. He was forced to look for free transfers and gamble on prospects from the lower divisions. He re-established links with the Academy, raising morale and unearthing a real talent in Alex Mowatt. By the end, he was selecting young players earning £200 a week.
Management has always been a charnel house, and had McDermott been sacked after punishing defeats by Rochdale and Sheffield Wednesday, the football world would have shrugged and moved on. But the callous and cowardly nature of his dismissal, enacted without the knowledge of existing board members, demands scrutiny.
Cellino and his advisers, including son Ercole, arrived at the club 10 days ago. His disdain for McDermott, whom he met in strained circumstances, was obvious. The former Middlesbrough defender Gianluca Festa brazenly watched two training sessions. Cellino’s request that Festa be allowed alongside McDermott on the bench during Tuesday’s game against Ipswich was rejected. Paul Hunt, sacked by Venky’s as Blackburn’s deputy CEO last year, was dismissed as Leeds’ acting chief executive in the aftermath of the manager’s departure.
GFH did not respond to suggestions they gave Cellino, previously linked with West Ham and Crystal Palace, control without waiting for his payment to clear. The Italian has promised to buy back Elland Road. Cagliari loaned playmaker Andrea Tabanelli to Leeds on Friday night, without releasing details.
Two major sponsors walked away, highlighting fears of a financial meltdown. The poisonous atmosphere preceding yesterday’s Yorkshire derby against Huddersfield Town was inevitable given police provided Cellino with a protective escort away from the ground at 11.15pm on Friday.
Rarely has regime change been so shameless and shambolic. McDermott’s human touches, such as allowing staff to bring children into offices during school holidays, will be much missed. A climate of fear and confusion has returned.
Festa kept a low profile yesterday, despite initial indications he had changed the team selected the previous day by McDermott, who was not at the game but whose name was chanted throughout a suitably perverse 5-1 win. Nigel Gibbs, McDermott’s assistant, was told by Haigh at 12.15 yesterday that he was in charge and intends to report for work as normal tomorrow.
Appropriately enough, Leeds imploded on transfer-deadline night, that biannual orgy of greed, self-importance and superficial glamour. While TV’s posturing ninnies wittered on, immune to the significance of events at Elland Road, the game lost a little more of its credibility.
Fit and proper persons? They are few and far between.
