Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything reproduces below a statement made today by the Leeds fans’ group Time to Go, Massimo. It is a statement with which we find ourselves in full agreement.
Leeds United has today found itself, once again, in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Rather than news about the Head Coach, a multi-million pound signing or information on key staff appointments at Elland Road or Thorp Arch, we are being dragged through the gutter AGAIN by Massimo Cellino and his shambolic ownership.
The charge, surrounding the transfer of Ross McCormack to Fulham in the Summer of 2014, in which Massimo Cellino has also been separately reprimanded, yet again highlights the inability of the current regime to perform one of the most basic of tasks required at a football club – selling players.
It is abundantly clear that Massimo Cellino is out of his depth at Leeds United; his toxic regime lurches from crisis to crisis, with no sign of that abating.
Time To Go Massimo
Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything 
The bloke’s a loose cannon, a danger to himself and all who deal with him.
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Cellino is the liability to end them all. His actions make you wonder just how he has survived in football for so long. He claims that he can’t work with English managers (a bizarre statement about an English club) which means that neither Don Revie or Howard Wilkinson would have been good enough for him. What more need be said?!!!
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It just gets more and more crazy. Trouble is, he cannot just walk can he? You cannot sell a club unless someone wants to buy it. We are stuck in a catch 22. You only have to read the utter garbage being bantered about. Every Tom, Dick and Harry is being lined up to take over as coach and yet the only guy who really knows the job right now is being treated with the utmost contempt. If Evans is going then do the decent thing and tell him instead of strutting around like a chicken with no head. When his contract runs out is now of no consequence.
If Cellino thinks it’s bad now, just wait until the start of the season, when we are exposed as a bigger mess than last season, languishing at the bottom with a useless new coach. He really is lining himself up for a life of hell. How on earth can the FA just sit back and watch the destruction of a club and its fans that has given so much to the game for generations. IF HE DOES NOT GO HE WILL EVENTUALLY BE RUN OUT AS THERE IS A LIMIT TO HOW MUCH WE CAN TAKE.
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How can he be / should he be / run out? Is there a billionaire buyer with a readiness to invest millions in a Championship side waiting in the wings? Whatever happens with ownership, we need, instead, to begin serious preparations for next season with the side and staff we have. Apart from all those league sides who finished above us this year, we must prepare – hopefully with a new manager – for the invasion of Aston Villa, Norwich, and Rafael Benitez and Newcastle – all with massive parachute payments and vaults of cash in tow. If we can’t overcome all these obstacles, irrespective of who our owner(s) is / are, I fear we may never break out of this league.
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He absolutely has to go toxic is an understatement!!
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Yet there are still those buying season tickets and those who defend him? It’s like politics, you get the government you deserve.
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To be fair mate,this government are in power due to fraud,not because they were voted in. Nobody deserves these scumbags. Meanwhile,I see theres been a quick turnaround at Villa. A Chinese businessman is buying them for 60m and their current owner is worried about whether the club will be in safe hands for crying out loud. Randy Lerner must be as deluded as Cellino.
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No last straws for a dictator.
Also have to wonder why it’s taken the FA two years to bring charges for a case involving just a handful of people. Was the Agent on the run or something?
p.s. Hold the abuse, I’m not defending Cellino here.
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Whilst I totally agree with the content of the letter, I am very concerned that our unstable owner will view the penultimate paragraph regarding his inability to perform the basic task of selling players as an insult to his deluded pride! He will most likely view this as another opportunity to “teach the fans a lesson” (a la pie tax), and put all our decent players up for sale just to create yet more provocation and instability whilst blaming it on the authors of this letter.
Hope I’m wrong but based on his crazy approach to everything else involving our football club I fear the worst.
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If another club had paid a 6 figure fee to an unregistered leech (sorry agent) I’d want the league to throw the book at them.
When I find that my club has paid another massive fee to help a player leave it makes my blood boil.
I’d like the FA to punish MC but I fear that it will be Leeds United to suffer
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No manager can work under or with Cellino – fact! Cellino is too full of himself to see anyone else’s point of view or to understand their feelings. Look at the statement about being hurt and lonely FFS. He has come to Leeds, totally ignored the history and culture of the club, treated people like shit, ignored popular opinion and absolutely refused to meaningfully communicate or engage. He goes round picking fights, whilst insulting and abusing public figures at the club and then wonders why people are turning against him. And let’s be fair about this, no public relations professional worth their salt would consider working for him, not for one minute. The writing was on the wall when he tried to sack McDermott. He should have been put on a plane and sent back to Florida then! Unfortunately, all of this will lead us nowhere. Next season will be dreadful and we are in trouble!
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There will be plenty more straws yet with this crazy, deluded
oaf running the show.
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Time to go Massimo but the only way that will happen is a football league ban. He is a permanent fixture here and it will be Groundhog Day for the foreseeable…The managers have always had to ‘big up’ Cellino to keep him on their side in every interview they do,it is a given with the job. McDermott, Redders, Rosler and Evans all had to do it. He sacked Rosler before he even settled into the job. He undermined Redders and treat him appallingly in many ways, sacking Thompson for no reason, instigating the sick note 6 and so many other things. Bellendusci has been his spy in the dressing room. The club stinks from top to bottom. He has sacked so many important people – there is no infrastructure anymore, no Youth manager, no head of recruitment, no assistant manager, no goalkeeping coach, it goes on and on. The man is a shambles. Of course he will get another coach because Leeds is a big draw and many out of work managers will take the job – but as for choosing the right water melon the four named above given time and backing and left to get on with the job would have at least challenged for the top 6 with 2 seasons. I think there must be buyers out there but Cellino will not give them the time of day and who in their right mind could deal with a man like Cellino, especially when you have to pay a £5 million non- refundable deposit to just look at the books and get things started. He doesn’t want to sell and it might be like that for a good few years to come.
For most of last season due to the unsettling influence by Cellino on the team, the managers and all the staff, the Leeds squad performed miracles to stay in the Championship. They were absolutely dire so often. This coming season we are relegation fodder, certainties to go down. Until they were safe from relegation they played so badly that we were lucky if they had one shot on target for the whole match. It was so bad that I missed many matches. I couldn’t bring myself to go. The last match I went to in that appalling run of form I went home at half time. Cellino’s plan is to do nothing, to make as little loss as possible and to tread water. He is not mega rich – he can’t afford to spend £8 million. He sold Byram because he needed the money and forced Evans to drop him or play him out of position to manoeuvre the sale. It was the actions of a lunatic that must have cost him at least £3 million on Byram’s value. He will sell Cook, Taylor and Mowett within the next 12 months and any of the young players that do come through he will sell when he is ready. That is his blue-print, it is how he ran Calgiari. He is destroying the academy and soon there will be no good young players to sell. He is alienating the fans and his season ticket offer is a bribe which he will never deliver on. I would love to be optimistic and I do still cling to the faintest of hopes that he keeps Evans on or brings in a man of quality and that we do add the 5 or 6 players needed to turn the squad into a team capable of reaching the playoffs. If that happens I will renew my season tickets but Cellino has lost whatever crumb of credibility he had left and I think he is now a laughing stock amongst the players, the staff and the general public. Last season he said it would not be a disaster if we were relegated. I honestly think that if were relegated he wouldn’t care. He has the fans – they will continue to follow the team home and away – it is the only thing the fans cling to now, the fact that they are the best away following in all divisions. They will continue to go whatever happens. Financially Cellino can’t lose, he has a sensible financial plan – for Cellino.
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Lot of anger there. Hell of a lot of insight and common sense too.
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A fairly true ‘big picture’ there David… Well done.
My own belief though is, Cellino can’t afford to allow LUFC to drop out of the Championship. That would really scupper his basic plan and he’d be seriously out of pocket. We’ll look forward to more of the same then.
On and on.
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There are only two sets of people that can save Leeds. The FL and tge fans. Will the FL act, will the Fans cut off his source of cash? I think not on either count.
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Rob, will go to just one match next year as on Jan 6 1947 was my first , so must do my 70th anniversary. Then that’s it for me, will go backtrack supporting my local team on league 22 or whatever. Springs to mind that some talent in league 3 would have us struggling!!!
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Classic that days after the FL cleared the fool to continue at ER, another charge comes down the tracks. The Fl is of course run by Sean Harvey, another shister who along with his bearded mate did as much damage to our club as present clown.(feel that MC has potential to do far more given time). Bates and Harvey were asset stripping criminals who were in it for self gain and weren’t afraid of showing it (east Stand building project, star player sales etc) I have no idea Rob why Cellino is at Leeds United – that is what is so confusing. If he has (allegedly) put millions into the club to balance the books, why would you do up a banger then repeatedly drive it into a wall all day long?
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Cellino needs to piss off quickly and take the equally clueless Evans with him. I suspect though that being the type of person he is,he’ll operate a scorched earth policy and sell on assets like Cook,Taylor and Mowatt out of spite. The chances are that he’ll tie Evans to the club for another few years to spite us too. Special mention must go to the football league though. As soon as Cellino was cleared of tax evasion they trump up a 2 year old transfer discrepancy. No anti- Leeds agenda there then Mr Harvey?. The coming season is going to be the most difficult in terms of promotion as we’re up against Newcastle,Norwich and villa with their vast resources. This club needs knowledgeable people in now,not owners with arrested development or gobshite coaches who don’t know a wing-back from a sling-back.
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David Dean – well said!
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MC has just postponed the Board meeting for 24 hours!!!
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