The official Football League line on Massimo Cellino’s takeover of Leeds United is that they are waiting for ‘outstanding issues to be clarified’. In practice, this means they are waiting for the outcome of a court hearing in Sardinia on March 18th.
The official Football League line on Massimo Cellino’s takeover of Leeds United is that they are waiting for ‘outstanding issues to be clarified’. In practice, this means they are waiting for the outcome of a court hearing in Sardinia on March 18th.
The deal could collapse this month if Cellino is found guilty of failing to pay tax which prosecutors allege was due on a yacht he took to Italy from the US. Cellino, who has a 2001 conviction for false accounting and is under investigation for alleged misuse of public funds relating to work on Cagliari’s Quartu Sant’Elena stadium, is accused of illegally evading paying €400,000 import duty on the yacht, which was seized in Cagliari in 2010.
At a court hearing in Cagliari last week, the Sardinian public prosecutor, Andrea Massidda, argued for a €1.165m fine to be imposed on Cellino, and for the yacht to be confiscated.
The club’s need for stability and new investment was emphasised by a shock 1-5 home defeat by Bolton yesterday. However, the Carson Yeung case has been a sobering lesson for the football authorities.
When Yeung made his £81.5m bid for Birmingham City in 2009, the Premier League was aware that an investigation had one already begun into how the one time celebrity hairdresser had managed to amass a large fortune in six years. Less than two years later, Yeung was arrested.