Fra TheBremnerLog!
Part 1:
Part 1
Massimo Cellino, born on the 28th July 1956, to a wealthy businessman, Ercole Cellino. In 1988, he took control of the management of his father’s hard-earned business group. He was the 22-year Owner of Cagliari Calcio, a man who initially (apparently) had very little interest in ‘soccer’ and was pushed to buy them by Franco Ambrosio (a fellow ‘corn tycoon’) back in 1992. (1)
Cellino’s purchase, from the Orrù Brothers, cost around L16 Billion. (2) He purchased a side that had previously regained its Serie A status through a recent promotion in the 1989-90 season. In Cagliari’s first two seasons back in Serie A, they achieved 14th position out of 18 (4 points clear of relegation) and 13th position (7 points clear of relegation).
During his first year as owner of the Serie A outfit, Cellino purchased 5 new players, whilst only 2 departed the club. This first campaign was a very successful one for Cagliari, as they achieved a remarkable 6th position in the league and qualified for the UEFA Cup the following season. One of Cellino’s new signings, Enzo Francescoli, received the title of the club’s top goal scorer for the season, with 7 league goals. One of the players Cellino had sold was Daniel Fonseca, who went on to score 16 league goals that season, with Udinese. When asked about this success for a Yorkshire Evening Post article in February this year, a number of Cagliari fans pointed towards the previous owners, the Orrù brothers, as being responsible. (3)
The 1993/94 season brought both highs and lows for Cagliari. Cellino purchased five more players, including the club’s top goal scorer that season, Julio Delay Valdes. Cagliari defied the odds and knocked Juventus out of the UEFA Cup to reach the semi-finals. There, they were beaten 5-3 on aggregate by Inter Milan, which was undoubtedly a huge achievement for a club of their stature. The UEFA Cup run appeared to distract Cagliari though, and they slipped to 12th in the league table, 6 places worse than the season previous.
During Cellino’s first two seasons in charge, three different coaches took control of Cagliari.
In 1994, Cellino oversaw the construction of the ‘Centre Assemini Ercole Cellino’- a sports complex, named after his father – to accommodate both the first team and the youth team system of Cagliari. The facility was “appreciated by even the bigger Italian sidesâ€. (4)
Now, I will be extremely careful with the wording of this ‘controversial’ incident, as I am currently unable to find any concrete evidence pointing here or there in regards to the specific events of this case. It would be silly to form any opinion on Cellino based on this incident, I am simply just letting you know it exists.
Here we reach the first stop in our ‘non-football’ related matters. On July 7, 1994, seven crewman were found dead on board Lucina, a boat owned by Massimo Cellino. Although the boat was Cellino’s, the owner was not present. Lucina had been inexplicably docked for 27 days at the Port of Jenjen, near Jijel, east of Algeria. This followed a number of recent ‘semolina runs’, to and from Algeria. The Algerian authorities blamed the slaughter on “Islamic extremistsâ€, ahead of the G7 conference in Naples, while the Observer, who investigated the matter, implicated the Algerian security forces.
The Observer in its reporting, cited the Italian newspaper La Repubblica as a source. La Repubblica stated that only 2,000 tonnes of the ship’s 2,600 tonne cargo were accounted for. It was questioned whether the ship had been “smuggling gunsâ€. When questioned, however, the Italian prosecutor charged with looking into the incident, said that there was “no evidence of [arms trafficking] in the documents before the courtâ€. (5)
The story of Lucina, while not directly concerning Cellino himself, provides an interesting backdrop to his corn business, and is the first of numerous boat troubles he was to encounter.
Returning to Cagliari. The next two seasons saw another couple of men enter the head coach role at the Rossoblu, nine new players signed contracts and a further nine players headed for the exit door. One of those departing was Oliveira, which generated a £6.16 million profit for the club. These two seasons both ended in mid-table mediocrity, with Cagliari finishing ninth and tenth respectively – an improvement on the previous term. In their first four seasons in Serie A under Cellino they achieved three top 10 places, while in all four seasons they finished higher than they did under the Orrù brothers.
1996 brought the next stop on Cellino’s rollercoaster career, with another non-football incident. Massimo somehow deceived the power and might of the European Union, when he was held in custody for eight days and was eventually convicted for deceiving the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and the EU out of a reported £7.5 million. Ultimately, Cellino bargained himself a 14 month suspended sentence for the offence. (6)
In the following season, Cagliari faced one of their worst years under the ownership of Massimo Cellino. Although he brought in 11 new signings, during the 1996/97 season, Cagliari found themselves lying in 14th position come the end of the campaign. This placed them in a relegation tie-breaker against Piacenza, who finished fifteenth. Unfortunately, for the Rossoblu, they were relegated to the second tier, having gone through another two coaches during the season.
Now, the next two seasons are unbelievable. No, no. Footballing wise it wasn’t anything extraordinary. But Cellino managed to not sack someone for the whole two seasons! Crazy! The man who managed to keep his job was Giampiero Ventura. Take a bow, my friend. During their first season in Serie B, Cellino made 6 new signings in an effort to gain promotion for Cagliari. It worked. The Rossoblu finished third and were promoted back to Serie A. With Ventura at the helm, anything was possible. Eleven new signings joined Cagliari for their return to the Serie A. A twelfth placed finish was achieved, but Ventura departed soon after.
The 1999/2000 season could have gone either way, really. With a lower mid-table finish the previous year, who knew what was to come? Cellino signed 12 players, including David Suazo, whilst 7 departed. After only three successes in the league, and a total of 18 defeats, Cagliari finished seventeenth out of eighteen and were, for the second time in three years, relegated from Serie A. The campaign wasn’t all bad, though, as Cagliari reached the semi-finals of the Italian Cup. The question this time was: could they bounce straight back up again? After signing nine players and making a £16.19 million profit on Jonathan Zebina, the answer was no. A disappointing season ended with an eleventh placed finished (Serie B being a 20-team league, versus the 18 in Serie A).
The turn of the millennium did not bring the best of times for Cellino. Following the various legal battles and disputes he faced, he made the decision to resign from his positions within the family business, and has not been involved since 1999. (7)
2001 certainly wasn’t the most pleasant of times for Cellino, not just in terms of football, but it also saw the third stop along the legal train ride as he was caught out again. As Leeds embarked on their Champions League ride, Cellino was convicted of false accounting at Cagliari for events that had taken place back in the early 90s. These incidents included the initial purchase of the club and the sale of some players, notably Daniel Fonseca. Cellino was again handed a suspended sentence, this time for 15 months. (
Cellino’s first nine years in as owner had brought two relegations, one promotion, two court-cases, two suspended sentences, a questionable incident aboard his boat, a hell of a lot of signings and over £20 million in profit from just two good deals – and that’s not even halfway through his time at Cagliari!
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Part two of this three part article will be released in the coming days, so keep an eye out on Twitter. Having laid the groundwork with the first half of Cellino’s tenure, what is to come next may spark more debate.
If you’d like to discuss any parts of these articles you can find me on Twitter @RhysTBB or via email – rhys@thebremnerblog.com.
References:
(1) -
https://sports.vice.com/article/the-manager-eater-is-the-worlds-weirdest-sports-team-owner(2)
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Cellino&prev=/search%3Fq%3DSorella%2BMassimo%2BCellino%2Barrestato%26rlz%3D1C1GGGE_en-gbGB499GB512(3)
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/latest-whites-news/leeds-united-cellino-divides-the-opinions-of-all-fans-1-6443575(4)
http://ingegnie.altervista.org/Cellino.html(5)
http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/finegil/la-nuova-sardegna/2011/08/08/news/il_mistero_della_lucina-20170950/(6)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1243469/West-Ham-ownership-crisis-deepens-money-man-Massimo-Cellino-outed-convicted-fraudster.html(7)
http://ingegnie.altervista.org/Cellino.html(
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/18/massimo-cellino-leeds-united-takeover-tax-evasion-guilty