By Andrew Warshaw
October 27 – Here today, gone virtually tomorrow. In less than seven months since taking over the club, Italian entrepreneur Massimo Cellino has turned Leeds United – not so long ago the proudest and most successful club in English football – into a laughing stock by sacking yet another manager almost as soon as he has walked through the door.
Darko Milanic lasted 32 days and just like the previous manager, David Hockaday, was in charge for just six games.
Back in April, Cellino clinched his 75% takeover following a protracted saga during which the English Football League attempted to block his buyout based on his past business background including being found guilty in a Sicilian court of failing to pay import duty on a yacht.
But an independent QC overturned that decision on appeal allowing the takeover to go through. Leeds were losing around £1 million a month at the time of the takeover, but Cellino said that he had cleared the iconic Championship club’s debts.
Cellino, who until recently owned Serie A club Cagliari, was quoted as saying at the time of walking into Leeds: “I want to be in the Premier League as soon as we can … if not by the end of the 2015‑16 season it is a failure. I want to transform the club. None of my companies have ever gone into administration.”
But the writing was already on the wall. In his 22-year reign at Cagliari, which he sold in June, Cellino got rid of no fewer than 36 coaches.
He has apologised to the Leeds fans for having hired Slovenian Milanic in the first place but England’s League Managers Association has described as “unsustainable” Leeds’ habit of changing managers so quickly.
And former Leeds legend Johnny Giles has urged Cellino to sell up and surrender control.
“I think the best thing he could do is get out of the club and make way for a new owner who could work in the best interests of the fans,” Giles told BBC radio.
“It’s crazy stuff. I don’t know what he expects of the managers. There are no resources to get players in. It’s outrageous that someone like him could come into a club – any club – and behave the way he has.”
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