If Cellino is looking for trouble, he’ll surely find it at Leeds
MASSIMO CELLINO has a way with an arresting phrase. ‘I always look for trouble,’ he says. ‘I’m a troublemaker, like I was when I was a kid, and I’ve not changed. I’m a little strange. I’m not normal.’
Most followers of Leeds United will regard these as unremarkable traits in the new owner of their club. After all that they have experienced this past decade, one more pugnacious eccentric will scarcely raise an eyebrow. And yet the game at large will follow developments with genuine anxiety.
In truth, Leeds do not attract universal sympathy or affection. Ever since the days of Don Revie, they have not been greatly loved outside their own parish.
Those of a certain age will recall a team of extravagant talent, irredeemably tainted by a taste for cynical brutality. With a bolder, braver manager, they might have created imperishable records, but still their achievements were dauntingly impressive.
In the course of Revie’s 13 years as manager, they were league champions twice and runners-up on five occasions, they won the FA Cup once and were finalists three times, and they took the Football League Cup, as well as competing successfully in Europe.
In that era, Elland Road attracted vast attendances, and even in this last, wretched season, when they finished 15th in the Championship, they accommodated an average of more than 25,000 fans.
By almost every yardstick, therefore, Leeds United are a substantial football club. It is important for the English game that such a club be led wisely by responsible executives. Which brings us back to Cellino. Newspaper lawyers tend to wince at the mention of his name and his record. Suffice to say, therefore, his Wikipedia entry describes him as ‘an Italian entrepreneur, football club owner and convicted fraudster’. UNDOUBTEDLY, he possesses a certain flair for figures, and that singular ability will be sorely tested. Leeds’ most recent published accounts, for 2012-13, revealed a loss of £9.5million for the year. Cellino himself has spoken of daily running costs of ‘ well over £100,000’, and the club are thought to be losing £1m every month.
So dire is the situation that specialist investigators informed him that the finances were in ‘the worst mess they’d ever seen at a football club’. Given the usual standards of football’s financial affairs, it is quite a claim. Yet still Cellino rushed to embrace the chaos. And the process was far from simple.
During his urgent pursuit he was required to clear several hurdles in the shape of what used to be called the ‘fit and proper persons’ test. And this for a football team whose deficiencies are all too obvious, even to Cellino.
Back in March, after watching Leeds lose 5-1 to Bolton, he threw a rare old tantrum: ‘The players p****d me off because they didn’t fight,’ he said.
‘What they did today, I would kick their a***s one by one. They were without pride and they should be ashamed of themselves.’
So why does he do it? What prompts him to endure such unseemly stress in order to purchase a club with such problems? Well, I fancy we can eliminate tender-hearted philanthropy or a desire to endear himself to the natives. Other than that, we can only speculate about his reasons, since he has not offered even the hint of a clue. WE may be quite sure, however, that such a man, with such a financial record, discerns the prospect of handsome reward somewhere down the line. This is not a sheik nor an oligarch indulging in a minor flutter, this is a cool-headed, cold-hearted operator who expects to make profits. And he has calculated that they will be sufficiently spectacular to justify his time, energy and anguished expenditure. If those profits should fail to materialise in adequate profusion, then we should naturally expect him to take whatever action he sees fitting. And the last state of a fine old football club may be much worse than its first.
It would be quite unfair to doubt his motives, but equally it would be irresponsible to assume his benign intentions. Having admitted him, albeit reluctantly, to their club, the Football League should inform him that their rules will be scrupulously applied, that they will scrutinise him severely and that any transgressions will be penalised vigorously.
‘I always look for trouble,’ boasted Massimo Cellino. One false step and he must expect to find it in West Yorkshire.