Phil Hay
Judge in the Nigel Gibbs tribunal case can take up to 12 weeks to return verdict. Still awaiting it:
Leeds await Nigel Gibbs judgment after Lucy Ward wins case for unfair dismissal
Massimo Cellino has tried to staunch losses of around £1m a month and scores of people have left the club, some of them unfairly. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
David Conn
Thursday 14 April 2016 22.33 BST Last modified on Thursday 14 April 2016 22.48 BST
Leeds United are awaiting judgment in an alleged wrongful dismissal case brought by the club’s former assistant manager Nigel Gibbs, and two other employment tribunal claims are understood to have been issued, the latest in a string of disputed departures from the club under the ownership of Massimo Cellino. These include the case that resulted in the damning court ruling on Wednesday that Leeds unfairly dismissed and sexually discriminated against their former academy welfare officer Lucy Ward.
Cellino, who has sacked five managers since he bought a controlling stake in the club in 2014, was found by the judge in the Leeds employment tribunal, Stephen Keevash, to have been behind Ward’s unfair dismissal. Ward, a former England Under-21 footballer and head of education and welfare at the Leeds academy for 11 years, told the tribunal she felt she had been “treated like a piece of meat†in the way she was sacked last year.
Cellino himself was banned last October from being an owner or director of the club for the second time, after a conviction for criminal tax evasion in Italy, but has been allowed to stay on, for six months so far, pending the hearing of his appeal against the ban. Evidence was heard in Ward’s case that Cellino wanted her sacked because she was the partner of the manager Neil Redfearn, whom Cellino was sacking, and so, as one witness put it, they came as “a pairâ€. However, the tribunal heard that Adam Pearson, then a director of the club, put Ward through a disciplinary process described by Ward’s barrister, Nick Randall QC, as “a shamâ€.
Leeds claimed Ward was sacked following this disciplinary procedure for going without permission to the Women’s World Cup in Canada last year as a commentator for the BBC. Ward was vindicated following what she described as “a nightmare 10 months for me and my familyâ€, after the tribunal heard that she was in fact given permission to comment on the tournament, and had done so previously. Pearson, the former commercial director at Leeds who left to become the chairman at Hull City and currently owns Hull FC rugby league club, was found not to have been “credible or reliable†in his evidence about his sacking of Ward.
Leeds were found to have breached five separate sections of the Acas code of conduct for disciplinary procedures, and her solicitor, Richard Cramer, said she would be seeking the permitted 25% increase in damages for that. Randall, her barrister, criticised Cellino for not giving evidence in person despite the “principal allegation†that he was behind her sacking, and of sexist attitudes, including Ward’s testimony that Cellino had told Gary Cooper, the chairman of Leeds Ladies FC, that: “Football is no place for women; they should be in the bedroom or beauticians.â€
Leeds said in a statement on Thursday: “Mr Cellino categorically denies making the statement … and would like to make it clear that such a statement does not represent his views of women in football whatsoever.â€
In an emotional statement, Ward said: “I had spent 17 years building up an excellent reputation in football for it all to be destroyed on a whim by the current ownership of this wonderful club, Leeds United.â€
No complaint is yet understood to have been made to the Football Association about Cellino’s alleged sexism, however, and the FA is not conducting an investigation. Scores of people are understood to have left Leeds after Cellino took over, as he sought to staunch losses of around £1m per month. He also sacked the manager he inherited, Brian McDermott, then appointed and sacked Dave Hockaday, Darko Milanic, Redfearn and Uwe Rösler, before hiring the current manager, Steve Evans. Several staff are known to have pursued financial settlements or entered into arbitration proceedings with the club, including Matt Pears, the fitness coach and Junior Lewis, Hockaday’s assistant.
Gibbs, the former Watford footballer and coach who was the assistant manager at Leeds with McDermott after they worked together for several years at Reading, has claimed wrongful and constructive dismissal for the way he alleges he was treated before he resigned from Elland Road in August 2014. Cellino did give evidence in that case, which was heard in the Chester district registry in March.
The basis of Gibbs’ claim is understood to be that after McDermott left, Gibbs’ duties and status at the club were downgraded to below his contractual position of first-team assistant manager. Evidence presented included claims he was told by email to have no further contact with the first team, was given old training kit rather than that season’s and was excluded from the pre-season tour of Italy.
Gibbs is understood to have told the court in his evidence that in one conversation during this period, Cellino told him to go and clean up at the training ground. Gibbs resigned and, with the support of the League Managers Association, claimed he was constructively and wrongfully dismissed. Cellino, in his evidence, is understood to have denied that alleged conversation with Gibbs took place and rejected claims of wrongful and constructive dismissal.
Two other complaints are also understood to have been lodged with employment tribunals; it has not yet been made public who have brought these cases. Leeds did not respond to a series of questions about the Ward and Gibbs cases and other allegations relating to their treatment of employees under Cellino.
The Guardian
