@PhilHayYEP: Turns out that after recent changes to UK law, Cellino's tax conviction will be spent in March of next year. Strengthens his position. #lufc
The problem for the Football League – which should not imply that the organisation has only one – is that Massimo Cellino’s tax conviction is constantly subject to change.
Leeds United’s owner has appealed the ruling against him and will have his case reviewed in Cagliari in December. Which causes a complication for the League. Disqualify him as a director now and its decision might be null and void before 2014 is out.
Cellino, conceivably, could lose that appeal. But even then the devil is in the detail. Under UK law his conviction for failing to pay import duty on a private yacht will be declared spent in March of next year, 12 months after the date of the Sardinian court’s guilty verdict.
The 58-year-old received a fine of 600,000 Euros and for a long time, a conviction leading to a fine was considered spent in Britain after five years. But the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 was amended in March, days before Sandra Lepore found Cellino guilty of tax evasion. Football League rules ban anyone with an unspent conviction for dishonesty from owning or sitting as a director at any of its 72 clubs. Spent punishments are disregarded.
The governing body has not actually laid its hands on a copy of Lepore’s written judgement yet so the argument over whether Cellino acted dishonestly in avoiding tax continues to rage in the dark but the confusion over Cellino’s status is like nothing it has seen before.
In short (and ignoring the fact that the Italian has other cases court arising soon), the League has less than six months before Cellino’s conviction is spent; six months to bar him, fight off any legal challenges, force him to sell his shares in the club and sanction a takeover. No chance, you would think. And definitely not with any co-operation from Cellino and Leeds. It is not at all clear what the League wants to do with him. Its chief executive, Shaun Harvey, gave the impression earlier this month that battle lines would be drawn again if Lepore’s judgement was damning but the League as a body has said nothing. A fortnight ago there was doubt about whether Lepore’s written verdict even existed – not that the League had asked the court in Cagliari for it – but The Guardian answered that question with a detailed review of it on Wednesday. The League’s next move is a mystery and has been for weeks.
It should be shrewd enough to realise that another attack on Cellino will garner very little support in Leeds. He can be on the edge, as his dismissal of consultant Graham Bean proves, but people whose concern starts and ends with Leeds United have found things about him to admire. They like the players he has signed and recently, they’ve liked the style of the team. They like the fact that football actually registers with Cellino, pictured right, as a priority.
But beyond that, when he bought Leeds in April the club were deferring wages, late with their tax bills, refusing to pay any others and defaulting on loans. Taking that in hand must count for something. So two questions if the League decides to take up this fight again: is the primary concern Leeds United or is the primary concern the application of the rules? And above all else, what alternative to Cellino is anyone suggesting?
