Former Southampton chairman Nicola Cortese is considering a takeover of Leeds United. He is contemplating an attempt to buy out Massimo Cellino.
Not without reason, Cortese believes that Leeds could be a leading force in English football. They have been in the past and Leeds is a regional capital within the Northern Powerhouse that the government is boosting. This may be more rheotoric than substance, but Leeds as a city is prospering. At the moment, however, there is no real crossover between the club and the city it represents.
Former Southampton chairman Nicola Cortese is considering a takeover of Leeds United. He is contemplating an attempt to buy out Massimo Cellino.
Not without reason, Cortese believes that Leeds could be a leading force in English football. They have been in the past and Leeds is a regional capital within the Northern Powerhouse that the government is boosting. This may be more rheotoric than substance, but Leeds as a city is prospering. At the moment, however, there is no real crossover between the club and the city it represents.
Cellino is thought to want about £40m, but it is generally thought that his 75 per cent controlling stake is worth less than this. Leeds don’t own their stadium or their training ground, so one is buying into a heritage and a potential rather than real capital assets.
However, at Southampton, another sleeping giant, Cortese masterminded their rise from League One to European qualification contenders. Mismanagement of that reasonable ambition at Leeds was the start of the club’s present woes.
Swiss banker Cortese has looked at a number of invitations to run or purchase clubs since he left Southampton 21 months ago, but he wanted the kind of real challenge with potential that Leeds offers. At Southampton he built the team around young, homegrown players. Among all the troubles at Leeds, the youth academy has remained strong. A perfectionist in all aspects of running a club, he left Southampton after a clash of over strategy with owner Katharina Liebherr.
Of course, one of the big uncertainties is whether Cellino would be willing to sell at a realistic price. Or he might agree to sell to Cortese, and then withdraw the offer, as he did with his undertaking to sell the club to fans. Notoriously mercurial, the prospect of losing his appeal against a FA ban that would last until June 2016 may concentrate his mind.
Oliver Kay was less than complimentary about Cellino in an article in The Times yesterday headed ‘Why fans must take over Leeds asylum.’ He described him ‘as the latest ludicrous ringmaster of the Elland Road circus’ . He quoted a former Leeds employee who described him not as a man who followed not his head nor his heart but testerone-fuelled impulse.
Kay suggested that modern day owners in British football often belonged to one of two categories: ‘the cynical, emotionless profiteer (you might be able to think of examples) or the wildly erratic, over-emotional flip-flogging mug punter who leaves his business sense at the door’ with Cellino vying for the leadership of the second group.
Charlton Athletic fans, many of whom protested against their Belgian owner yesterday, might be able to think of a third category: the egoistic visionary who has a low view of football fans and the way in which the game is run.
Kay suggests that what fan ownership can do is renew the bond between clubs and their communities. Of course, the big question is how one raises the money to buy the club and cover any likely losses. Portsmouth, the biggest club to go into fan ownership so far, was available at a knockdown price in administration and even then needed some wealthy backers to close the deal.
Like Leeds, Charlton has a strong academy, one area in which the present owner is investing. But a club with no rivals in a regional capital is a much more attractive prospect for someone like Cortese than a club in London’s crowded football market and one that is not in a fashionable area of the city.