The Football League have finally decided that Massimo Cellino has failed their ‘fit and proper persons test’, but it’s typical of the man that he’s not going to go quietly. Where do Leeds United go from here?

Just when Leeds seemed to be moving in the right direction, with an inspired victory over leaders Derby County and a team fully committed to playing for their new head coach, there came today’s news that Massimo Cellino will be banned from owning the club. A move that threatens to plunge us back into yet another period of uncertainty and instability.

in April Cellino survived the League’s first attempt to oust him on a technicality, as his lawyer argued that the Italian court who convicted him for evading payment of import duty on his yacht ‘Nellie’ hadn’t notified the League that he had acted dishonestly.

But last week the League finally received a written judgement from the court, and their board meeting unanimously concluded that it proves proved his offence could “reasonably be considered to be dishonest.” Shaun Harvey didn’t take part in the discussion because of a ‘conflict of interest’, due to his former role as the club’s Chief Executive.

Cellino 14 days to lodge another appeal to the Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) but League rules give him just 28 days to resign as a director of Leeds and cut his ties with the club. And just to add to the confusion Cellino’s disqualifying condition only runs until March 18, 2015, as his tax conviction will be declared spent under UK law because of the time that will have elapsed since the offence.

A statement on the official website says “The club is in the process of taking legal advice on the reasoning of the decision. In the interim, the club notes that nothing has changed since the decision of the Football League’s Professional Conduct Committee in April 2014. The steps that the League wishes the club to take — to remove Mr Cellino only to re-appoint him in three months’ time - will be destabilising for the club, its supporters and sponsors and cannot be in the best interests of any party.”

And Cellino was a bit more forthright when he spoke to the Yorkshire Post. “I don’t know if I’ll appeal. I need to speak with my lawyers and look through all the papers to see what the League has said about me. What is their problem? We pay our bills, we do things right. Nobody was paying anything here when I bought the club. What did the League do about that?”

“The club is not for sale. We are not selling the club, not because of this. This doesn’t change anything. Massimo Cellino does not own Leeds. My family company owns Leeds. It is my family’s money which bought the club, not my money. If my family company asks me to step back for two or three months then I’ll step back. If that has to happen then I’ll do it. But we won’t be selling the club.”

But it might not be that simple. League rules also apply to ‘shadow directors’, which is anyone who has no formal role but exercises considerable influence behind the scenes. No members of Cellino’s family have any significant wealth independently of his, and even if other family members were named as the directors, I’m sure that no one would believe that Massimo was not pulling their strings.

So if the League are serious about wanting Cellino to sever all ties with the club, it’s likely that they will try to force his company Elanora Sports to sell it’s majority stake in the club. And even if Cellino somehow wins another appeal, he is still facing a number of other cases in Italy over tax evasion, which may yet force him out.

So what happens now? Cellino claims that he is on the verge of completing a further £20 million investment into the club, of which £5 million would come from GFH, in line with the 25% shareholding they still retain. This may well be connected to the re-purchase of the stadium, but that will presumably be in jeopardy once again if Cellino is forced out.

And if Cellino is forced out, will he be able to demand that any new owner will have to pay him the money he used to by his share from GFH and everything he’s invested in the club since? The League’s statement leaves that question unanswered, but it will have a big bearing as to who will be able to come in and pick up the reigns.

Are the Farnan and Flowers consortiums still waiting in the wings, even though they were outbid earlier in the year? Will Red Bull sense the chance to gain that complete ownership of the club that Cellino refused to consider when the two parties met last month? Or will some other investor come along to take control of the club?

Whatever happens, we’d better hope that it gets sorted pretty quickly, so that Neil Redfearn and the team can get on with the serious business of getting the results and climbing up the league table.

Photo: Action Images

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