Last year Italian law was changed to decriminalise certain offences, the result being that Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino found himself a winner in court.
That win, over a fine for avoiding import duty on a Range Rover, meant that Cellino had his 223-day Football League ban rescinded, a ban which was on appeal in any case. Much to the chagrin of some elements of the Leeds United fanbase, Massimo Cellino was free to continue his contested ownership of the Whites.
However, it is a sorry case that Cellino and court cases seem to fit hand in glove, despite the Leeds United owner trying to throw an OJ Simpson-style glove into the mix now and again. Escaping one conviction and subsequent ban on a reclassification technicality could be seen as a minor victory for Cellino, but it did not mean that he was home and dry as there were bigger legal clouds on the horizon.
The IS Arenas trial.
This trial, dubbed the IS Arena trial, is less fire and more inferno when it came to the array of charges that faced Cellino and his co-defendants in a trial that involves charges of fraud, embezzlement and misappropriation of funding. It is a trial that has already seen jail sentences handed down for some who entered into a plea bargain arrangement.
The original arrest warrant for Cellino, issued as far back as February 2013, called the then-Cagliari owner a man with “marked criminal tendencies … capable of using every kind of deception to achieve his ends.” It is deception that appears at the very heart of this trial with charges being laid against the Leeds United owner, the former mayor of Quarto Sant’ Elena Mauro Contini and the commissioner of public works Stefano Lilliu – serious charges that include attempted embezzlement, forgery and violations of ‘zoning’ regulations.
Charges such as embezzlement and forgery are in the upper echelons of criminal charges, something far removed from acts such as avoiding import duty that Cellino has avoided during previous brushes with the law. It is charges such as these that don’t just get football club owners banned for failing tests of propriety, they get people sentenced to quite hefty jail terms as well.
Still, after earlier proceedings that set the wheels in motion in this case, it seems that Cellino will have to wait for his day in court as a succession of delays have pushed the proceedings further and further back in the year. As journalist Chiara Zammitti points out, November is the next date when Cellino could be facing the brute force of Italian justice.
no news, trial postponed. Next time on november
— Chiara Zammitti (@ChiaraZammitti) September 28, 2016
However, by then Cellino’s thoughts could very well be elsewhere as he has been directly implicated by the Daily Telegraph in their ‘Football for Sale’ sting operation, where the fiery Italian discusses ways that investors could get around player purchase rules. One way or another, Cellino is deep in the foul-smelling mire that tend to help flowers grow and doesn’t smell too glorious.
