Tag Archives: Football League

Free-falling Leeds Hammer Nails in Millwall and Barnsley Coffins – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 01/04/2014 | 25 comments
Leeds lose yet again

Leeds lose yet again

Leeds’ shambolic collection of bottlers predictably meandered to yet another defeat at Elland Road as Charlton picked up a rare three points on the road.  No surprises there, merely a hint of something to raise the eyebrows as United kept it down to one, making a welcome change from the lavish generosity of their defence over the past few games.  It’s not even that upsetting when Leeds lose any more – it just adds to the cumulative weariness of a season long ruined by dishonest and self-seeking men off and on the field of play.  The magnificent Leeds supporters have carried off all the laurels due at Elland Road this campaign.  They have been there through thin and thinner; the highlights have been few, the disappointments and betrayals many – and yet still they turned up, those amazing members of the White Army, raucous and indomitable everywhere Leeds have played, startling fans on away grounds into an awed and respectful silence.

The Charlton game will not have added appreciably to those fans’ suffering. Their preoccupation is with off the field matters, as it has been for some time. It’s become more and more obvious that the one man out there honest enough to see how things are, and outspoken enough to lay it on the line as to what needs doing, is the man currently waiting to see if he will be allowed to set about saving a famous old club.  Massimo Cellino has ranted his way into the hearts and minds of United’s fans, fans who notoriously love a nutter with passion in his heart.  The decision as to his ownership of the Club will be made known in the next few days; on that decision, it is not fanciful to say, rests the whole future of a club that has been massively let down over the past few years – by just about anyone you care to name, aside from a select few players and staff.  And, of course, those phenomenal fans.

The real losers coming out of this latest defeat to Charlton are, in fact, two clubs whose fans normally wish Leeds United no good at all, but who will have been on their knees praying for an unlikely Whites win.  If there’s a crumb of comfort out there, I’m in the mood to seize on it – and the fact that Barnsley and Millwall would have been hoping for three points for Leeds does provide more than a hint of satisfaction.  A glance at the league table makes this quite clear.  We were looking at a group of death in the bottom four of the Championship, but it was noticeable that Charlton had a good few games in hand due to their Cup exploits.  The win at Leeds has seen them open up a three point gap over Barnsley, despite the Tykes’ recent good form, and a comfortable FIVE points over a hapless Millwall side.  And the Addicks still have a game in hand over Barnsley and two over Millwall.  So Leeds’ abject failure against Charlton has done a power of no-good to two clubs whose fans’ attitude towards United leaves them deserving no favours from our part of West Yorkshire.  I have to admit, that leaves me with a slightly malicious smile on my face.  The fact that the normally-reliable Ross McCormack missed a late, late penalty to ensure the full three-point hammer-blow to the Tykes and the Bermondsey Scum, just added a slightly piquant touch.  ‘Ave it, I thought.

As far as this blog is concerned, the priorities for the rest of this wretched season are few and simple.  First, we need to have Cellino approved; this immediately changes the whole picture at Elland Road and provides a foundation upon which to build.  The alternative, quite frankly, doesn’t bear thinking about.   Secondly – let’s not have this latest defeat go to waste.  Let Charlton Athletic use their three easy-gained points at our expense as a springboard to survival, and let’s see Barnsley and that odious, horrible club Millwall consigned to the lower leagues where they belong.  And thirdly, on a totally unrelated plane, let Bayern Munich finish the job against Man U next week, before losing in their turn in the next round.  These are relatively simple and realistic wishes; let them be granted. After this horrible, horrible season, I deserve no less – and I would hope a good proportion of my fellow Leeds fans would also draw some comfort in the fate of others, whilst celebrating a new era for ourselves, under our passionate, committed and insane Italian lunatic.

If that little lot comes true, then perhaps we can look forward to better times next season.  A Championship that would be all the more fragrant and lovable without the likes of Millwall and Barnsley.  A club under strong leadership, with money available to fund the big-club aspirations a big club should rightly have.  That will do for me, as a starting point.  If we can take the first step towards realising such a scenario in this fateful, historic week – then things will look, suddenly, not so bad.

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Posted in Football, Leeds United

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Twitter in “Happy Ending for Leeds” Rumours: Cellino IN?? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 30/03/2014 | 55 comments
Shaun Harvey: rumoured to be bearer of glad tidings

Shaun Harvey: rumoured to be bearer of glad tidings

When you’re drowning, you clutch at straws.  So when a Facebook friend mentioned that she’d seen a hopeful-looking tweet from someone who is (apparently) a neighbour of Shaun Harvey and claims to have received his reassurance that all will be well for the takeover – well, I had to see more.

What I saw could be the usual Twitter rubbish, but it could (just) be true as well.  Harvey is reputed to have stated that the Football League has no interest in seeing Leeds United go into administration, and that Cellino’s takeover was always going to be approved as the best way forward for the club.  The Italian court case seems to have muddied the waters rather, and it was felt that a straightforward approval would detract from the credibility of the League’s Owners & Directors test.  So – the rumour runs – the League felt it advisable not simply to approve Cellino, but to wait for the appeal stage in the knowledge that approval would be forthcoming then.

Obviously, the question arises: what is Shaun Harvey doing shooting his mouth off to a neighbour, when the whole matter is effectively sub judice? That’s a good point, and I tend to agree with it.  However, this morsel of rumour seems to me to have enough going for it for me to at least pass on to the Leeds fans out there – who are doubtless chewing their nails down to the elbows worrying over what’s going to happen to our club. Any hint of good news is something I’d certainly want to hear – so I’m going out on a limb to do my bit to share it.

Don’t shoot the messenger, eh?

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Two Days On, Lorimer Backs This Blog in Leeds’ Need for Cellino – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 27/03/2014 | 38 comments
Justice, or a gun to the head?

Justice, or a gun to the head?

On Monday, the Football League took a decisive step towards killing its biggest, most celebrated and famous member club by refusing to ratify the takeover of Leeds United by Massimo Cellino.  That day I posted a rant, explaining lucidly exactly what I thought of the League – 125 years old last year and exactly as senile as that might lead you to expect.

On Tuesday I wrote a more measured piece, arguing that, even if the League might have been technically, legally within their rights on the evidence before them, any workable set of regulations should incorporate an element of discretion – so that foolish and damaging outcomes would not necessarily be reached in the blinkered cause of absolute rectitude.

Lash

Lorimer – hero?

Today, Peter Lorimer, one-time United hero and man of many faces, has written in the Evening Post, making precisely that last point.  Lorimer is a Leeds Legend and, as such, it’s to be hoped that people will listen to him.  I’m just relieved that I’m not the only one arguing for common-sense over slavish adherence to regulations.

Of course there is now an appeal pending, led by Cellino’s lawyers and – one presumes – arguing that the League’s decision was not even technically correct.  The grounds for such an argument will be couched in legal terms and will deal with esoteric points of law; that’s the way these cookies crumble.  But I would hope that, on the appeal panel, there might be one person of such wisdom as to look above and beyond what is legally right and proper – and examine the pragmatic face of this sorry saga.  In other words, maybe they’ll look at the real-life import of whatever technical irregularity Cellino or his people have permitted to happen.

Maybe they’ll ask themselves why somebody, with over a billion Euros of capital and over two hundred million in annual income, would seek to avoid an amount of duty that represents the merest of small change to a man of such fabulous wealth. Perhaps they will look at the state of Leeds United, with odious creatures from dank and forgotten swamps now slithering around it, helpless without an injection of lifeblood to avoid being consumed by the mire.  Could they even consider the interests of thousands upon thousands of lifetime supporters, for whom Leeds United means almost literally everything outside of family, home and hearth?

You would hope so, you would very much hope so – after all, any appeal panel would be more independently constituted than the League’s own set of self-important, self-interested buffoons, and would even include a legally-qualified member, maybe a QC.

Any pragmatic common-sense approach to this issue could have only one outcome.  Cellino – about whom it has never been shown he has any malign intent towards football clubs he owns – should be welcomed with open arms and just the merest whisper of caution: “We’ll be keeping our eye on you, old son. Don’t screw up.”  This would at least have the effect of dragging Leeds United away from the precipice edge at which they now perilously teeter. It would shine a light into the lives of thousands who are, right now, in actual, genuine despair at the state of the club they love.  It would protect the income streams of many of Leeds’ fellow clubs, who rely to a large degree upon the annual invasion of the best support in the country and the money those fabulous fans spend in following their team.

The alternative route – the League’s own solution of identifying a technical, legal sticking-point, and going blindly with that – would only result in the farcical, self-defeating situation that applies right now.  A suitable parable might be that of a priest, walking beside a lake in which a man is floundering, unable to swim.  There is a lifebelt just out of reach – but instead of throwing it to the doomed man, the priest examines it, and finds it to be of manufacture in a country of a different religion.  “Throw me the lifebelt, Father!” yells the struggling man.  The priest considers him sadly. “I’m sorry, my son,” he says, “this lifebelt has not been blessed and is therefore sinful.  I would be endangering your immortal soul – I’m sorry, but I have to throw it away.” “But Father, I’ll die!” cries the sinking man, not waving but drowning.  “I regret, my son, I regret – but this is how it has to be,” says the priest, throwing the lifebelt away behind him and moving on.  The poor man duly drowns, but the priest is able to reassure himself he did the right thing, by his own lights – and he is sure the dead man’s family will understand.

Will common-sense eventually prevail?  It must rest on a knife-edge.  But, now that a louder voice has taken up the call, perhaps the message will spread more widely and perhaps it will find a sympathetic ear or two, connected to a brain that can actually reason and think for itself – instead of simply seeing things in bald, legally-based black and white.  On this faint hope will depend the question of whether Leeds United might be thrown a lifebelt, or instead be left to drown.

Get ’em told, Lash.  You have a chance to redeem yourself after a few less-than-glorious episodes during the Bates years.  Get out there and spread the message, make us proud of you once again as we were in those ninety miles an hour days of yore.  The way things are now, we need you even more now than we did back in that glory, glory time.

38 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

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League: Just Because You CAN Doesn’t Mean You SHOULD – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 25/03/2014 | 41 comments
What is needed, set in stone

What is needed, set in stone

Yesterday’s Football League decision to block Massimo Cellino’s bid for Leeds United still reverberates around the football world – and appears set fair to make a proper old impact in the bewigged legal environment also. An appeal is inevitable and m’learned friends will be getting their fangs into the meat of the matter, dissecting the terminology of the rules in question (the Owners and Directors test) and entering into interminable semantic debates in an effort to prove white is black and “this” actually means “that”.

Therein, to this blog’s mind, lies the real problem. For, in their eagerness to show the technical application of their regulations to the instant case, the League have failed to pay any attention to common sense, practical considerations and real world consequences. In short they have done what they have leant over backwards to convince themselves they technically can – without anything like enough thought given as to whether they should.

This much is absolutely clear from a reading of their judgement, a not particularly accessible document which is redolent of some player in a game of strategy, anticipating the moves from the other side and exclaiming “a-HA!” as they trump that ace with some wily move of their own.  It all looks rather clever, perhaps, but it’s not at all wise – not in the real world.  Out there, real people are stuck with the consequences of these endgame machinations from remote, aloof players whose primary concern seems to be showing that they are technically right and that their view should therefore prevail.

The old saying “Just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should” has absolute relevance here.  And before anyone decries old sayings, let’s not forget that they become old sayings because of their simplicity and impact, because of the sheer, concise, logical beauty of their common sense and reason.  Not for them the contortions and convolutions of legalese, the twisting and turning to try and make a default position appear technically unimpeachable.  Cleverness is all about winning in a head-to-head battle of cat and mouse, or in the strategy of chess.  Wisdom, on the other hand, is about finding the right solution for the greater good – meeting the interests of the many, not just showing how one ego or the other has succeeded in “proving their position is legally correct”.  What we have here, in a nutshell, is the distinction between law and justice.  The League have strained every sinew to justify themselves in terms of the former, with scant if any regard for the latter.

In all the acres of print I read yesterday, there was far, far too much about interpretations of law and regulations – and hardly anything about the practical impact on the people who matter – the fans and, by association, Leeds United football club and its employees.  The League, after a farcical delay during which everybody with any interest in the matter suffered pain and humiliation to an uncalled-for degree, appeared to have ended up justifying what must have been their default position from the start.  Where was the recognition that here was a famous old club that had been in financial difficulty for over a decade, and now had the chance of a fresh start?  Where was the consideration of the impact of this decision on thousands upon thousands of people for whom their football club represents a massive emotional and – for the individuals concerned – financial investment?

These real-world issues just weren’t there at all.  It was all dry as dust; here are the legal reasons why the bid fails.  But what do the League imagine Cellino will actually do, if he was accepted as Leeds owner?  Buy another yacht, perhaps, and display it in the West Stand car park with a sign on it saying “No tax paid on this – bollocks to the authorities”.   Or perhaps he’d buy the stadium back, fund the club and get them promoted and competitive in a higher division under separate jurisdiction.  Maybe that’s what they’re scared of.

What is needed here, what was totally absent yesterday, is a measure of wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon, perhaps – that classical example of the magical compromise solution.  Compromise requires give and take, negotiation, the willingness to apply common sense to a situation too fraught with humanity for the application of mere, prosaic regulations alone.  But the League have neglected any such avenue of common sense or compromise.  In reaching a decision to disbar Cellino because they feel they technically can, without sufficient or any regard for whether they really should, they have ended up throwing that Solomon baby out with the bathwater – and achieving an outcome which threatens to fly in the face of their own duty of care where their member clubs are concerned.  Remember that duty of care, gentlemen??

And what do we actually have here, after all?  Well, we have a man in Cellino who has made a considerable fortune in his working life – somebody who, as with anyone in that position, will have trodden on toes and made enemies as he rose to the top. That’s hardly unusual, as some of those Football League mandarins will be all too well aware.  There are not too many squeaky-clean billionaires out there; omelettes are not made without eggs being broken at some point in the process.  “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”, said a wise man once upon a time.  That was another old saw that went missing yesterday.  So we have this Italian guy, loaded with money, wanting to invest in an ailing football club – and he’s demonstrated his bona fides already to the extent of funding that club to a significant degree – without even being recognised as owner.  The Football League need their member clubs to be financially viable.  It is a vital part of the whole thing working.  They should have been crawling on their hands and knees to thank Signor Cellino.  So what do they actually do?  They reject him, because one interpretation of a complex form of words says they can.  Is that wisdom?  No it’s not, it’s foolhardy, cack-handed incompetence.  Or even worse, it might be prejudice and self-interest. Whatever it is, it’s not common sense.

The fans have admittedly been divided over Cellino, much more so than over certain unsavoury faces from the recent past.  Ken Bates, for instance, was regarded as the Devil incarnate by most Leeds fans – and it’s clear from all sorts of evidence and his own personal demeanour that Mr Bates is a deeply unpleasant, profoundly dodgy individual.  The fans knew that, and they agitated accordingly, to get him out of the club.  The League merely sat on their hands and watched Leeds limp along in poverty and humiliation.  And yet, on the other hand, they rule out of court a man that most Leeds fans do want to see at least given a chance – mainly because he represents the best hope of a properly-funded future for a club of history, pedigree and achievement.  The blind arrogance of the refusal to afford that chance, the sheer self-defeating stubborn illogicality of it – it’s utterly mind-boggling.  The moral is: the fans know best, instinctively, about their own club.

This process still evidently has a way to run – so maybe it’s not too late for the whole rationale behind it to change, and for the better.  So let’s not get caught up in the esoteric interpretations of complex regulations – let’s have a little common sense.  Let’s not end up with an outcome which will leave the Football League open to charges of failure in its duty towards a member of its own “football family” as that smug article Brian Mawhinney put it so unctuously on several occasions – let’s have impartiality and some pragmatism.  The League, though, have form for coshing Leeds United over the head, allegedly in United’s own best interests.  They keep feeding us this nasty medicine, saying it’ll do us good – when in reality the appearance is of a draught of poison that might carry us off.  We’ve seen it all before – and the fact that we survived in 2007 is no fault of the Football League’s.

So please – let’s have some wisdom and common sense now, instead of dry law and rough justice.  There are people out here, gentlemen of the League, people who will genuinely suffer if you carry on in your insistence on disappearing up your own fundament to justify decisions that damage the interests of a struggling football club.  Leeds United matters – it matters far more than any legal principle or set of regulations allegedly drawn up to “protect” League members. If the League can’t see that for themselves, then somebody with a bit of common sense and clout needs to enter the process, even at this advanced stage.

Solomon the Wise is sadly not available – so who will step forward and provide the wisdom and insight this farcical situation so sorely needs?  It’s sincerely to be hoped that the next few weeks will provide an answer to that.

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The Football League: Incompetent, Corrupt, Arrogant Hypocrites – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 24/03/2014 | 54 comments
The Football League Panel, yesterday

The Football League Panel, yesterday

The classic defence against a libel suit is “But it’s the truth, m’Lud”. I therefore have no qualms about the title of this blog, which I hope will be read by some of the parties to what was, ultimately, an indefensible decision to block Eleonora Sport’s proposed takeover of Leeds United.  In bending over backwards to apply the letter of their Owners and Directors (OAD) Test, the League have proven themselves unable – or more likely unwilling –  to see the wood for the trees. They are blatantly guilty of pettifogging insistence on the letter, as opposed to the spirit, of the so-called “Fit & Proper” test.  The fact is that any set of regulations must be capable of interpretation so as to allow for the achievement of the greater good.  In other words, rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.  The League now stand before the football and sporting world as purblind fools. Worse, they are hypocritical fools, fools with selective vision, fools who are self-evidently prey to massive conflicts of interest.

The most obvious problem with today’s decision has nothing whatsoever to do with Massimo Cellino, and everything to do with several people who are happily getting on with the business of running various football clubs whilst at the same time carrying the burden of shady dealings which you might – on today’s evidence – have expected to disqualify them from their football activities.

Step forward, for instance, Carson Yeung of Birmingham City.  Except Carson cannot actually step forward very far, because he’s languishing in a 12′ by 12′ cell somewhere in China, guilty as charged on five counts of money laundering amounting to somewhere in the region of £55m.  Or there’s that nice Mr Owen Oyston, of Blackpool FC.  He’s a convicted rapist who did time for his crime and will be on the Sex Offenders Register for evermore – but the League have cocked a deaf’un to the misdemeanours of both these men.  Oyston’s son Karl, incidentally, was on the League panel which ruled on Cellino today.  His rapist dad remains a director and majority shareholder at Blackpool, a matter which apparently tasks the gentlemen of the League not one jot.  I wonder how Karl kept either of his faces straight?

Add to this little hymn to venal and otherwise dodgy behaviour the less than appetising track records of various other owners around the League; men who veer just the right side of criminality, but whose conduct in office would surely cause raised eyebrows in a responsible governing body. There’s the porn barons Sullivan and Gold at West Ham United.  Assem Allam at Hull City who wants to re-name his club Hull Tigers, and who advised supporters chanting “City Till We Die” to go ahead and die as soon as they liked.  There’s Vincent Tan at Cardiff City, who has ridden roughshod over the history and tradition of the Bluebirds by making them play in red, who wants his ‘keeper to chip in with some goals and who will hopefully suffer a deserved relegation for sacking the manager who gained Premier League status for him and appointing an inexperienced nobody.

It’s not really that impressive wherever you look around the League – and yet the complacent Burghers who serve on panels such as today’s are blind to it all, blind to everything except their overweening need to find some reason – any reason – to disqualify Massimo Cellino.  They eventually got him on a matter of unpaid tax on his yacht, “Nélie”, for which he was heavily fined and had the boat confiscated.  But there’s neither rhyme nor reason, there’s neither logic nor consistency in the League stance, not given the context of the case and the precedents set by the ongoing acceptance of some of the bad boys mentioned above.  A couple of days ago, I wrote that the League’s treatment of the thousands of Leeds fans sweating upon the outcome to this saga was “Cruel and Unusual”, as defined by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution.  It always did strike me as a blatant flouting of this amendment that the good old US of A had a liking for leaving convicted criminals incarcerated on Death Row, sometimes for decades – and then casually popping them into an electric chair and snuffing them out.  Cruel indeed – but sadly not that unusual in the States. The unconscionable lengths that the Cellino decision process has been dragged out to – only for that ultimate, smug and self-satisfied “No” at the end of weeks of torture for legions of Whites – does rather smack of this kind of cruelty on a more mundane level.

But the Football League mandarins evidently don’t care about that.  They don’t care about the conflict of interests apparent in the constitution of their panel, including as it did men in charge of football clubs with a vested interest in keeping Leeds, profitable, well-supported Leeds, in the same division as their own teams.  And not forgetting, of course, that son of a rapist.  They don’t care that their organisation is headed by a man in Shaun Harvey who, as United CEO, left Leeds under a cloud when his crooked confrère Ken Bates was ousted, the pair having compassed the near demise of United in nigh on a decade of financial dodginess and general mismanagement. They give not one solitary damn about the glaring examples of criminality elsewhere in club hierarchies throughout the League, nor indeed about the fact that Cellino wanted Leeds, Leeds and most of its fans wanted Cellino and the additional fact that the Italian has the personal wealth necessary to spark a revival at a club which has suffered in penury for twelve long and depressing years.  None of that makes one bit of difference to the shortsighted idiots and hypocritical charlatans of the Football League.  They have chosen to snatch the lifebelt away from the palpably struggling Leeds United and they are prepared to see the club suffer financially and risk possible administration, points deductions, relegation – maybe even liquidation – rather than abandon their tenacious quest to confound this potentially transforming takeover.  Is this in the best interests – interests they are duty-bound to protect, by the way – of their most famous and high-profile member club?

You tell me, then.  By its own lights, what is the Football League worth?  Have they shown an ounce of competence or common sense throughout this farcical process?  The dear old Grauniad says they’re “finally stepping up to the plate“, the clear implication being that, as I’ve written above, they’ve not been too bothered in the past about much greater misdeeds than Cellino’s alleged Italian tax faux pas.  Strange how it’s always Leeds United that causes the League to get all moralistic and start enforcing draconian sanctions.  How Mr Hardaker would approve.  But nothing about this case inspires the least confidence, I would argue, in the Football League’s worthiness or ability to judge even a village Best Marrow Contest.  The holes, conflicts and inconsistencies in today’s decision conspire to make that all too tragically clear.

So I say again, tell me – given all of the above – are the Football League really fit for purpose?  Are they even remotely “fit and proper”?

Not on your bloody Nélie.

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League Hope for Leeds Ownership Decision “Before Next Ice Age” – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/03/2014 | 14 comments
Image

Shaun Harvey: no axe to grind, honest guv.

The Football League today moved to quell growing concern at the continued delay in reaching a decision on the proposed takeover of Leeds United by Eleonora Sports.  League spokesman Lee D. Shater confirmed in a brief statement that “it is envisaged a decision can be reached sometime in the present glacial period”.  The prediction, which nails down the potential notification date to sometime in the next 5.7 million years, would seem to fly in the face of letters from Leeds United Football Club to the Football League, requesting that the matter be concluded by last Thursday. Mr Shater was dismissive of this request, stating that it was “unfeasible”. The League would, he said, stick by its 5.7 million year timescale – though he did add that the effects of global warming could potentially stretch this out to as much as 8.9 million years.

The reaction at Elland Road was philosophical.  “We didn’t really expect to hear by last Thursday,” a source advised Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything. “We were just hoping to apply a little subtle pressure with a view to hearing some positive news, perhaps by the end of the century”. The proposed timescale of “sometime within this geothermal epoch” has caused some scratching of heads at the club, where officials confirm that all paperwork has been submitted and that everything should be in place for an announcement at any time.

ImageThe latest from the League is that part of the delay has been down to their desire to recruit a new non-executive member of the Football League board, who would be envisaged to have some vital input into the decision-making process. One surprise name in the frame is that of Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung.  The fact that Yeung is currently in jail in China is not seen as an obstacle to his involvement in the Cellino case.  “Carson is still the owner of Birmingham City, and we feel that his particular experience will prove vital in determining the suitability of Massimo Cellino to be the owner of one of the Football League family of clubs,” said Mr Shater, shredding a file marked “Documents requested from Leeds”.  A prominent sports lawyer later confirmed that Yeung’s criminal record could be of positive relevance in the Leeds case. “After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief”, he winked cheekily.

Shaun Harvey is irretrievably bent.

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Football League Treatment of Leeds Utd Fans is “Cruel and Unusual” – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/03/2014 | 36 comments
Image

Justice delayed is justice denied

“Cruel and unusual” is a highly descriptive phrase identifying treatment which is considered illegal due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person or persons subjected to it.  It has an American flavour these days, due to the fact that it forms the sharp end of the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution, which was designed to protect citizens from being too harshly treated by over-zealous law-enforcers in the Land of the Free.  Yet the words were first used as far back as 1689 in the English Bill of Rights, as the Old Country sought to limit the excesses of the various courts as they set about correcting malefactors.  A similar form of words also appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Whichever piece of history you might choose, these are powerful words, specifying and ruling out of bounds judicial and other behaviour which is considered fundamentally unacceptable, uncivilised and uncalled-for. And yet somehow you still have Guantanemo Bay in the US of A – and over here in Merrie Olde England, we have the Football League.

In a sporting context, it’s hard to conceive of a situation more closely approximating to “cruel and unusual” than the Football League’s casually callous attitude to the hapless and frustrated fans of Leeds United, as their scrutiny of Massimo Cellino goes on and on, ad nauseam.  To provide a little background, Leeds fans have been waiting for over a decade now for some obliging Knight to ride in on his white charger and bear us all off to a brighter and happier future.  It’s been years of purgatory, humiliation and having to grub around in competition with clubs not fit to lace the boots of former Champions.  And when, at long, long last, a potential saviour enters upon our tableau of suffering, with promises of rich bounty and an enhanced wage structure, what do the Gentlemen of the League do? They shilly-shally most grievously, that’s what.  They mank about, ineffectually. They spin the whole bloody thing out until the nerves of all Leeds fans, whether they want the Italian or not, are as red and raw as meat on a butcher’s block.

It’s almost as if, in fact, they take pleasure from the long, drawn-out, torturous nature of their interminable process.  Meanwhile, criminals, idiots and despots rule the roost at various other clubs, and nobody says them nay.  Cellino, no more than a likeable rogue and certainly not the heavy-duty villain you find without too much effort elsewhere in the Championship, must feel rather picked-upon, to say the very least.  It’s not fair; it’s not even remotely funny unless you’re some leering idiot that supports Sheffield Wendies or some other such bitter, Leeds-hating outfit. It’s the stuff of malice and persecution, the kind of thing that seems to happen only to Leeds fans – there’s no wonder some call us paranoid (And we’re not, not at all.  They’re just getting at us).

Even when the end-game seemed to be upon us, still they’ve umm-ed and ah-ed away in their ivory tower, in that aloof, patronising, annoying way common to all such pettifogging bureaucrats.  We’re meant to take from all this that they’re so busy and important, with weighty matters to consider, the kind of things that mere turnstile fodder could never hope to understand.  Don’t they realise that we see only a bunch of daft old gits in suits, blundering around, trying and failing to distinguish arse from elbow? So when an Italian court pronounced Cellino guilty on Tuesday of some silly technical tax misdemeanour, fining him and grabbing his yacht, could the League not then have acted decisively?  At least we would have known where we stand.  But this latest five-day-and-counting extension to the already lengthy wait for some sort of decision – it’s just added bitter insult to grievous injury.

GFH also have to bear a large portion of blame for such a farcical, overblown and ridiculous situation.  Their latest clumsy attempt to impose some sort of order took the form of an ultimatum to the League to get the matter sorted by close of play Thursday.  Naturally, the League – standing on their supposed dignity – airily disregarded this.  Such incredibly important gentlemen are evidently not to be told what to do and when to do it by a bunch of investment bankers.  So they continue to take their own sweet time, to scratch their well-upholstered backsides and ruminate away, absorbing tea and biscuits and achieving the square root of sod-all.

Meanwhile, the fans continue to be treated as mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed on crap.  And we suffer, not in silence – because there are some very angry people out here – but we suffer nevertheless; our club is important to us, and we’ve done nothing to deserve all this.  We just want answers, stability, some idea of where we are and where we’re going, if anywhere.  We want a future, one that might in some way make up for some of the dark hopelessness of the past twelve years.

All of these men in suits, at some point or another, have paid lip service to recognising that the situation – the stupidly long delay – is not ideal for the fans.  They have acknowledged that there are many thousands of us out here, deeply affected by the goings-on at Leeds United, deeply apprehensive about what the future holds, profoundly upset and humiliated by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which buffet our club, while so many others seem to have a relatively untroubled existence.  They have nodded their heads wisely, and expressed regret.  But still the silly charade goes on.

It does appear likely that, at some point in the next few days (touch wood), we will get an answer.  We were even told it might be by yesterday (Friday). But that was probably just to emphasise that it wouldn’t be happening on Thursday, as GFH had demanded.  In any event, Friday came and went, and nowt happened. The previous time-scale of ten days would take us up to the end of the weekend, meaning that another vital match has to be played in a cloud of uncertainty.  Nobody seems genuinely to care what all of this is doing to the legions of harmless and inoffensive people for whom Leeds United forms an extremely important part of their everyday lives.  It’s scandalously thoughtless, unforgivably casual. In context, it is definitively cruel and unusual, the kind of thing no body of supporters, with the exception of Man U, should ever have to put up with.  But we’re Leeds, so – apparently – we’re fair game for this sort of thing.

There are many out here now who don’t care half as much which way this decision goes, as they do about finally getting some decision, so that we can take stock and move on.  Limbo is supposed to have been abolished by the Vatican seven years ago, but it’s where we’ve all been for the most part of this year so far, and it’s not very bloody nice.  So please – after we’ve dealt with Millwall or they’ve dealt with us this Saturday – can we possibly call a halt to the most nonsensical period of uncertainty I can recall since the original TOMA? Because we really have had quite enough cruel and unusual treatment now, thanks.

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Football League Ready to Stretch a Point to Accept Cellino? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 18/03/2014 | 31 comments
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Massimo Cellino – waiting game

They’re strange folks at the Football League.  When the news broke this morning of Massimo Cellino’s less-than-ideal result in the Italian Courts, I rather expected that we’d have a ringing non-endorsement of the King of Corn in good time for an early lunch.  This pessimistic view was based on close to fifty years’ experience of the game’s authorities being ready, willing and indeed eager to do Leeds United a power of no-good at every possible opportunity – the so-called “Hardaker Approach”.  But in the hours since the court decision was reached, all we’ve had from the League is a brief, bland statement which noted the Cellino verdict and added only: “We are engaged in an ongoing dialogue with his legal representatives in this country and cannot comment further at this time.”

Heads will be scratched and brains will be cudgelled as to precisely what that dialogue is aiming to establish.  There are various theories flying around, surrounding issues such as whether the matter is a civil or a criminal one, whether the status of Cellino remains innocent until proven guilty when there are still legal stages to be gone through – and, significantly, whether the League’s test should even apply to Cellino because of their own 30% stake provision – Cellino apparently only has 9.5% of Eleonora Sports, the company that is in the process of acquiring 75% of Leeds United.

It is the fact that this “ongoing dialogue” is going on at all, though, that is really of most interest. There is just the faintest whiff of a suspicion that the League would like to have its biggest club, its most compelling attraction, established on a  secure footing if at all possible.  It may just be to this end that talks and negotiations are now going on.  In various corners of the Leeds United universe, there are stubborn voices of faith, claiming that the takeover will go through, that all parties have long been prepared for today’s eventuality and that a way will be found to confirm the takeover, with whatever technical or cosmetic tweaks that might be necessary.

Such a theory also allows for the fact that yet another administration may not simply be a disaster for Leeds United, but also for the game’s governing body below Premier League level – and maybe even for the Premier League itself, for whom the eventual participation of Leeds is more and more being spoken of as A Good Thing.  This line of thinking says that Leeds’ presence would be welcomed in a league which has long marketed itself on glamour and excitement, but which has had rather too many Wigans, Cardiffs and Norwich Cities lately – and not enough Leeds Uniteds, Sheffield Wednesdays and even Nottingham Forests.  Leeds are easily the biggest pull below the Premier League, and there would be distinct financial benefits for any League containing a Leeds team doing well and pushing up the table.

It’s all speculation of course – but, given the theory that the Football League were simply waiting for today’s Cellino court verdict in order to give a simple yea or nay, the fact that there is still apparently so much to talk about may well prove significant in the final reckoning.

Not that I am holding my breath, of course.  There is the Carson Yeung precedent and there is the fact that Cellino promises to be a breath of fresh air at Leeds.  But for it to end up happily, with Leeds building for promotion under a minted benefactor just sounds that bit too good to be true.  For it to happen, we’d surely need to have a bit of good luck.  And we all know that good luck and Leeds United go together like ice cream and mustard.

Still – it might yet be an interesting few days ahead.  But whether that’ll be in a good way, or a bad way, remains very much up in the air.

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Is Shaun Harvey the Right Man to Rule on Leeds Takeover? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 12/03/2014 | 25 comments
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Shaun Harvey – smile on the face of the jackal?

The natural state of any football fan is one of unease, dissatisfaction, maybe even a touch of paranoia. The game is like that; it builds you up, raises your expectations – and then brings you crashing down to earth with an almighty bump. There are exceptions, of course. Some sets of fans have it easy by regular standards. But there are few hiding places, few protected bubbles of success. Even Man U fans, in their Devon armchairs, have experienced the bitter tang of reality this season.

How much more likely is it, then, that we fans of Leeds United will view the world outside of our own beloved club with a jaundiced and suspicious eye, ready at any time for some or other callous institution to do us a bad turn. Look at our history over the past half-century, and there’s never been too long between one grievous injustice and the next.

Now we wait for the Football League to pass judgement on a takeover that might just see us free of the sucking morass of poverty that’s been dragging us down for so long. We are looking at two sharply diverging paths ahead: upwards towards top-flight glory with funding appropriate to the size of the club – or back down among the dead men, without a pot to do the proverbial in, headed for another administration and ruing the day. Which shall it be? Leeds United must await the long, gleefully drawn-out pleasure of the Football League.

And who, pray, sits at the head of the body making this future-defining judgement? Why, it is none other than Shaun Harvey, erstwhile CEO of Leeds United in the unlamented Bates years, complicit in the actions which typified the reign of a man who once swore to bring about the death of our club, if he possibly could. When Bates finally fell, Harvey was finished at Leeds too. The two acted in tandem during a nightmare period for United and, in the minds of Whites fans, there was little to choose between them in the final analysis.

So how has a man with such baggage as this ended up as the ultimate arbiter in a case with such grave implications for a famous old football club to which he contributed no great service during his time there? How could such a possible conflict of interests have been allowed to transpire? Can real justice be done here? Can it be seen to be done??

It’s certainly not an ideal situation, is it – not by any stretch of the imagination. But, lest we forget, the League have prior form for tolerating what would seem to be blatant conflicts of interest regarding Leeds, and in the fairly recent past, too. During United’s first season in League One, the thorny issue of the 15 point deduction – the controversy which eventually denied Leeds an immediate, automatic promotion – was voted on by fellow League clubs, many of whom, our League One rivals, had a vested interest in keeping Leeds at that level, thereby benefiting from our phenomenal away support.

Was justice served? It ended up as a massively complex and technical question. But was it seen to be served? Those vested interests, that undeniable conflict between parochial benefits and the greater good – they say no. Nottingham Forest, the direct beneficiaries of this carve-up, would argue the opposite as they celebrated an unearned promotion. But the whole thing left a nasty taste which persists to this day.

Neither, in the instant case, will justice be seen to have been done if Shaun Harvey should be instrumental in any decision to deny United the lifeline that Cellino appears to represent. Rumours from London cabbies about possible South African consortia aside, the Italian seems to be the only game in town. If he is now compelled to walk away, Leeds will almost certainly be in dire straits, unable to meet running costs, tumbling headlong towards another administration and all that that entails. Is that what the League, under Harvey, actually want? Many United fans of a certain age, able to remember the malice and vindictiveness towards Leeds United of one Alan Hardaker, will nod glumly and say “Aye, most bloody likely they do.”

If Leeds are to be cheated of their saviour, must it really be signalled by a Judas in the reptilian form of Shaun Harvey, poised to betray his former club with the kiss of death? Couldn’t they at least maintain a semblance of judicial disinterest, reaching a decision without the dubious input or decisive vote of Bates’ former henchman – leading as it might to a fulfilment of old Ken’s 30 years-ago vow to kill Leeds United off once and for all?

If things pan out that way, everyone will know that there’s something rotten in the state of our football administration. Anomalies like this should not crop up, not when the fate of a football club – which, let’s not forget, looms so large in so many thousands of lives – is quite probably at stake.

Let’s have the right decision, by the League’s own rules – the standards that permit paragons of virtue like Carson Yeung, Vincent Tan and Assem Allam to run various of our clubs. Cellino would be OK by that reckoning – so let him get in and get on with saving the club which gave English League Football its finest team.

But if it all goes wrong – well. We’ll know at whom to point the accusing finger of blame – won’t we?

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That GFH Statement Decoded – By Rob Atkinson

Posted on 12/03/2014 | 35 comments

This is a statement from GFH – we still own the club, right? We are the OWNERS, so get that into your heads until you’re told different. Capisce??

GFH and Massimo Cellino are currently jumping through a set of hoops set up by Shaun Harvey, who we upset quite enough last year, so we have to tread carefully or we might not get our money and Massimo might not get his football club. It’s all frightfully complex and even we don’t understand it, so we don’t see how you rabble are going to make head or tail of it.

The thing is – we’re on with it, OK?? It’ll be done when it’s done, as long as Shaun’s in a good mood. So stop nagging. We don’t mind putting out the odd statement now and then, but don’t expect us to give any actual info to mere turnstile fodder. Just trust us, right? Have we ever let you down? Actually, skip that one.

David Haigh has left GFH and gone to work with Cellino’s daughter, Eleonora, who is apparently a sport. He’s not daft, is he? Knows which side his bread is buttered, that one.

We would like to thank those of you who have continued to part with your hard-earned to see us ship nine goals in two home games. God knows where we’d be without you lot now that Massimo’s pulled the plug. Just hang on in there, it’ll be fine. Probably.

Statement ends.

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