Cellino hit with 18-month suspension
LEEDS owner Massimo Cellino has been suspended for 18 months and fined £250,000 for breaking the FA’s agent regulations.
The club have also been fined £250,000 but both they and Cellino say they will appeal.
Cellino’s ban is due to start on February 1 and the 60-year-old Italian has also been ordered to complete an education programme covering “the duties and responsibilities of an owner and director of an English football club”. Agent Derek Day has been hit with a suspension and fine as well. Day was fined £75,000 after admitting breaches of the FA’s agent regulations.
He was also banned for seven months, with a further 11-month ban suspended for two years.
Leeds, Cellino and Day were charged by the FA in May over the July 2014 deal that led to Scotland striker Ross McCormack moving from Elland Road to join Fulham for about £11million. The transfer was one of the first concluded by Cellino after the former Cagliari owner’s takeover of the Championship club in early 2014.
Earlier this week Cellino expressed his surprise at the news the FA were to ban him, saying: “If I am guilty of one thing, it is protecting Leeds United since I took charge of the club.”
Cellino has enraged the Elland Road fans during his tenure, sacking six coaches and being involved in a number of off-the-field incidents.
He was suspended by the Football League in 2014 after being found guilty of tax evasion in his homeland and this year had another ban overturned.
Ironically, Leeds are having their best spell on the field for years.
Under Garry Monk they are fourth in the Championship and eyeing a return to the top flight they left in 2004.