First Il Presidente told an Italian journalist that he introduced the ‘pie tax’ as a punishment for the fans, but now he’s trying to pass that off as a joke.
Cellino introduced the much-criticised £5 surcharge in December after enduring chants of "Massimo, it’s time to go!” at the televised home game with Blackburn, with much of the abuse coming from the South Stand. Shortly afterwards he spoke to Sardinian newspaper L’Unione Sarda, and a video this interview was published on YouTube on December 20th.
Cellino explained the extra charge by saying "At some point someone told me ‘Cellino, Cellino’ - 20 supporters of my team - ‘time to go.’ And I said ‘but why don’t you go away?’ And the supporters (said) ‘we pay!’ So I said ‘No, you pay to see the game. To criticise me you need to pay extra’ and I put five pounds more for each ticket.”
"I’ll explain what happened. Outside the stadium there is a guy who thinks he’s clever and put up an unauthorised stand. He sells beers. Consider that in England you can’t live only on television rights. Leeds live on tickets and beer that is sold at the stadium, and season tickets. We collect about 40 million (euros) per year with season tickets and beers only. So if you put the stand in front of the stadium with a bar to sell the beers, what can I do?
"So I said ‘those that go to this bar, that are the friends of this guy, because they are the supporters that criticise us also, they need to pay 20 pounds plus five pounds with beer included.’ They are very angry and criticize me for this.” The extra charge is still in place on adult tickets in the South Stand, and the Football League have said that it doesn’t break it’s rules on ticket prices.
This week the Yorkshire Post have discovered the video and asked Cellino about his comments, but the club’s majority shareholder is now claiming it was all a big joke. "I never could do anything like that. In the bar business we try to make (the fans) buy the beer from our bars and not from everybody who sells them in front of the stadium. It is to help the club.”
If it was all a joke, then many Leeds fans won’t see the funny side, and nor will the Italian newspaper who have apparently been duped into reporting his controversial comments. It’s more likely that he did mean what he said at the time, as that would fit in with his hot-headed and impulsive nature, and the complete failure to think of the long-term consequences of anything he says or does.
It might be that he’s now trying to pass his comments off as a joke as he’s now calmed down a bit over the protests, but if that’s the case, why not scrap the ‘pie tax’. Apart from further antagonising the fans who were already annoyed with the way he is running the club, the extra charge is hardly going to encourage fans to buy tickets and endure the lifeless football we’re currently playing in our home games.
The Yorkshire Post are showing the video of Cellino’s December interview with L’Unione Sarda on their website, but it’s not much use if you don’t speak Italian, as no translation has been provided.