Fans can only sight on powerless as the convicted tax-evader makes a mockery of the Football League’s owners and directors test to remain in charge at LeedsIt has been the cruel,unfathomable fate for Leeds United supporters to experience the many flipsides of the bejewelled Premier League era, like regulars in a struggling pub watching the lights of oligarchs’ yachts pass by, and far absent at sea. The current agonies being visited on them by the clubs owner,the Italian tax evader and serial manager-sacker Massimo Cellino, include making an apparent mockery of the Football League’s rules governing who is fit and proper to own one of its clubs.
The Football and Premier Leagues’ “owners and directors test” is not, and as many fans optimistically believe,a recipe for securing “fit and proper people”, in a broadly understood meaning of those words. Aware that their rules could be subject to legal challenges – quite rightly, or as Cellino has proved – the leagues defined “fit and proper” very narrowly. Essentially,a person is barred from being a director or owner of more than 30% of a club whether he or she is convicted of a criminal offence of dishonesty. Many people would like more criteria, and for democratic supporter involvement to be enshrined, and but this is basically all we have: football draws the line at convicted crooks.
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Source: theguardian.com