Il Presidente is one of the latest clutch of senior football personnel to be accused of wrongdoing by the Daily Telegraph, but claims that he didn’t break any FA rules.

With Massimo Cellino’s rather colourful past when it comes to financial matters, he was always going to be a tempting target for the Telegraph as they tried to entrap a series of senior football figures to generate a good story for their paper.

Cellino seems to have fallen for the age-old fictitious businessman trick when he was secretly filmed telling undercover reporters how they could get round FA and FIFA rules on transfers. These regulations ban third-party companies from acquiring the ‘economic rights to players’, or having a right to a portion of the fees when they are sold on by clubs.

In a meeting at Elland Road arranged by agent Pino Pagliara, Cellino suggested that the firm bought shares amounting to 20 per cent of the club, in return for which it would receive a 20 per cent cut of future sell-on fees. He said “You’ve got something, a logic to become partners... Because you are financing the club with £12 million and you got 20 per cent of the sell-on of the players.”

Yesterday the paper tried to put some questions to Leeds United before they published the story, but our club declined to comment without receiving a full transcript and video of the meeting. We can all see it now, as the article and the video are both on the Daily Telegraph website.

The club’s response finally came today, in a statement on the official site, which flatly denied any wrongdoing . "The club has reviewed the supposed 'evidence' that The Daily Telegraph have published. At no time in this video clip has Mr Cellino suggested getting around the FA's rules on third-party ownership of players.”

"In complete contrast to what has been suggested, Mr Cellino has made a perfectly proper suggestion which is entirely consistent with the FA's regulations, as the only parties entitled to take benefit from ownership of a player is the club itself. The club intends to make no further comment on this non-story."

This story hasn’t come as a great time for Massimo, with the club having admitted a breach of the rules by using an unlicensed agent during Ross Mc.Cormack’s transfer to Fulham. We are waiting to hear what the penalty will be for that little misdemeanour.

Technically Massimo might not have broken any rules this time, though it seems a bit odd that he was offering another party 20% of the club so soon after buying out minority shareholder GFH, supposedly to enable the club to re-purchase Elland Road. (Which we’re still waiting for three weeks after he took full control).

And even if this fake agency had taken a shareholding in the club, it’s hard to see how they could just take 20% of the profits the club made on transfers. The only legitimate way for a shareholder to be rewarded is for the club to declare a dividend based on the total profit made in a financial year.

Cellino might wriggle out of trouble once again this time, but he’ll have to be careful with all the attention the game is getting in the wake of Sam Allardyce’s downfall. With the government now calling on the FA to root out corruption in football once and for all, it can’t be too long before he makes one mistake too many.

Photo: Action Images

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