Massimo? Surely not.
Meet Massimo Cellino (that’s him on the left there). Ol’ Massimo wantsto take over at West Ham United. He has money, and he has experience — the Italian owns Sardinian club, Cagliari Calcio of Seria A . Know what else he has? Two convictions for deception.
in 1996 he was jailed on suspicion of stealing over 7m from the Italian government, and in 2001 he cooked the books at Cagliari and received a 15-month suspended sentence. But that’s not all; just last month he appeared in court at a corruption trial into fixed matches.
Cellino flew into to London on Wednesday and presented his plans for the Hammers to their owners, Rothschild Bank and CB Holdings, who are also considering offers from Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes and former Birmingham owners David Gold and David Sullivan.
Cellino certainly doesn’t fulfill the criteria set out in the Premier League’s ‘fit and proper’ persons test, and after a look at the rules that define the test it appears that dear old Massimo is s**t out of luck, but hey, Al Faraj passed with flying colors and he’s turned Portsmouth into a barely breathing corpse, destined for relegation and maybe even bankruptcy.
Current West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola played for Cellino’s Cagliari from 2003-2005, helping fire them back to Serie A.
Sardegna is f*cking awesome.
that’s all I really wanted to say.
West Ham likes criminals. It just might work.
Not fit and proper? How can you say that? Look at him. He’s not a fat slob, ergo fit. And he has a tie on. That’s proper. Good enough for me.
-Scudamore