We thought that we might learn this week if Massimo Cellino was going to be able to buy a majority stake in the club, but now the League have asked for yet more information. Despite that we are believed to be in the process of taking another Sunderlands’ Connor Wickham on loan.
Contracts have already been exchanges between current owners Gulf Finanace House and Cellino’s company Eleonora Sport, but the Italian still needs to pass the Leagues ‘Fit and Proper Persons’ test before his takeover of the club is complete.
A League statement said today "The Football League remains in discussions with both the owners and proposed purchasers of Leeds United, regarding the planned change of ownership. To date, a significant amount of the requested information has been supplied by GFH and Eleonora Sport, but there are still a number of outstanding matters that will require further submissions from the two parties.”
"The Board of The Football League is next scheduled to meet on March 13 where it will receive an update on the matter from the League's executive, unless all the remaining issues can be resolved satisfactorily in advance of this date."
Brian McDermott has said that the team needs the ownership situation to be resolves as soon as possible, but it will now be at least another two weeks before we know if Cellino’s bid for the club has been successful. Is the delay just because the League want to be seen to be thorough, as this is the highest profile case to involve the FPP test since it was introduced? Or is there a real chance of Cellino being turned down?
If Cellino isn’t able to buy the club and GFH are forced to go cap in hand to another bidder (presumably the Farnan group) then any new owner would have to compensate Cellino for the money he has already put into the club, as well as our other liabilities. With the club losing around £1million a month, the Italian is believed to have paid the wage bill for February as well as allowing the loan signing of Jack Butland.
One of the major causes of our financial difficulties has been the ever-growing wage bill, yet this is likely to increase still further with the arrival of another striker on loan. Brian McDermott told the Yorkshire Post "We have got that resilience and just need to do that extra bit in the final third now that can make that difference. Something could happen. It’s been intimated to me there is a possibility (of bring loan players) in.”
McDermott confimed over the weekend that he is in talks with a striker, who he declined to name. The Daily Mail are claiming that the lucky man is Sunderlands’s Connor Wickham, yet Clubcall.com think it might be John Guidetti of Manchester City.
If the Cellino takeover does fall through after we’ve continued to increase the wage bill by taking players on loan, we will have to hope that the Farnan group have enough cash to pick up the tab. The have always claimed to have sufficient funds to run the club through their City backers, and we may yet get to find out if that is really true.