Exclusive: With Leeds mired deep in controversy, our reporter talks to the club’s unorthodox but anguished owner
“I ’m losing my balls.†Massimo Cellino is explaining the toll of running the Damned United. “Ten years ago, I had more balls, but since I came here it’s been a nightmare. Now I have a low quality of life. I feel shame when I walk to the shop to buy cigarettes if we lose a game. I convinced my family to come here and they have run away. It’s like being at a party where you’re not welcome. It’s killing me. Every night I lie awake, asking myself, ‘Am I good enough?’ â€
It is a common question. The Leeds United owner has just appealed his second disqualification by the Football League for failing the Owners’ and —Directors’ Test. Rumours that Red Bull want to buy the club have resurfaced. Steve Evans has become the sixth manager of the Cellino era. Court cases and tribunals are pending. Meanwhile, Leeds have won three of their past 22 games.
What will happen if he loses his appeal and has to resign again, at least until the conviction for unpaid VAT on an imported Range Rover becomes spent in June? “The holding company cannot keep this club without me running it,†he said in an office at Elland Road overlooking a statue of Don Revie. “To save money I do 20 jobs. If they ban me and someone else comes in who does not fight for the club, it is dead.â€
He veers quickly between gossamer whisper and enraged polemic. The Football League bears the brunt of the latter. He is incredulous as he talks of his son’s Range Rover. He says a “car with that specification†could not have run on Italian roads anyway. “It never went out of the garage. I sent it back to America and bought my son a diesel car the day after.â€
Leeds fans have heard worse. This month David Haigh, the former managing director, was ordered to pay £200,000 after a failed prosecution in which he claimed he was a victim of human trafficking. A decade earlier, fans read headlines about a former director’s plan to cut costs by paying hit men to break club stalwart Gary Kelly’s legs. The bigger problem for many is not tax evasion but avoiding relegation when the owner keeps sacking coaches.
“It’s bad firing a coach,†Cellino says. “It’s very bad, the worst thing. You think I get peace from that? You don’t think it’s easier for me to sell the club and walk away in peace?â€
Why sack so many then? “The alternative is to protect myself from admitting I made a mistake. I tried to help Uwe [Rösler, who he sacked as manager last month] a lot. A beautiful man, but instead of helping I gave him more problems. I don’t want to pick the team, bulls***, but watching a coach make mistakes when I have experience and want to make him better — I tried to help.â€
Cellino says that last year he wanted to appoint Nigel Gibbs, the assistant of Brian McDermott, the first man felled by the Italian’s scattergun. Gibbs’s unfair dismissal tribunal will be held in January. He says he loved Neil Redfearn. The sexual discrimination and unfair dismissal case of Lucy Ward, Redfearn’s partner and the club’s former welfare officer, is coming up soon. Did he really not know who she was when quizzed, as reported this week? “Listen, you don’t know how many names I see every day, but yes, I remembered — the blonde girl who works in the academy.â€
If he stands by the firing, it stands to reason his hiring must be flawed. “I agree. That’s the right question.†So should he take more advice before rushing in? “When you ask for advice sometimes you hear what you want to hear,†he says. “Sometimes I feel a coward [for asking for advice]. It’s a way of fighting my fear and weakness. My dream is to have a coach for ten years. It could happen at Leeds.â€
Ironically, he says the Owners and Directors’ Test is a good thing if it protects the clubs, but he insists Leeds need protecting from the League. “This club survives without Massimo Cellino but not with TV rights killing it,†he says. “If we waste all this income for two or three years the club will be bankrupt.†He claims the constant changing of fixtures means the loss of 4,000 fans, possibly permanently, and that the League ban, he claims, is payback for his criticism.
His own retaliation was to limit away ticket sales to the minimum 2,000, incurring the wrath of the club’s large travelling support. He will meet Leeds Fans Utd today, a group seeking fan ownership at Elland Road, but said: “The meaning got changed. I was just asking the fans to complain with their feet, not screaming at the League for being p****d off, saying ‘f*** Sky’. It didn’t work.â€
If he feels the fans have turned for good, you sense he might depart. “I’m not a coward. Life is not just about enjoyment. But I ask myself if it’s better if I leave. Only failing to make the fans happy can hurt me.â€
There may be worse to follow with a case related to alleged embezzlement at Cagliari, his former club, looming. “I have done nothing, I swear,†he said, before pointing out the three protracted stages of appeal in Italian law. “It will take 15 years. I think they are hoping I die.â€
He lights a cigarette and sighs. “I’m still awake at 5am. I’m taking all this crap on myself. I used to play golf off a five handicap; now it’s 25. I do nothing. I watch movies to get away from reality. I used to enjoy watching the boys training but I don’t do that anymore. I hope to survive physically but it’s a bad life.â€
He huffs at the mention of Red Bull. “You think I can sell a club in five minutes?†he asks. “Who gets hurt in the meantime? Last season someone sent me a lot of bulls***ters.â€
He says he has trimmed the wage bill from £22 million to £13 million and has a better team than a year ago; that the club’s surviving employees are now better paid. He likes the “beautiful football†of the Championship. “Forget tactics. They don’t let you play here. It’s a nightmare and I love it.
“You need big balls. Let me tell you something, we had bigger balls before and now we have small balls. We need to blow up our balls again.â€
We are back where we started. “You keep talking about the stadium [he will not be buying it back], about Don Revie, beautiful man, they are dead, we are here.â€
This is Leeds. It is a whole new ball game.