Leeds owner Massimo Cellino stands decision to dump kit supplier – even though it could cost club £5m

Special report: Italian ditched Macron before end of contract, with the company pursuing legal claim over ‘very serious’ development

Massimo Cellino blames the myriad legal issues Leeds United are facing on the club’s previous owners (Getty Images)

The Leeds United owner, Massimo Cellino, has told The Independent that he stands by his decision to dump the club’s long-standing kit suppliers Macron, despite the company stating in their first public comment on the issue that they view the development “very seriously” and will continue to pursue a £5m legal claim against the club.

“We are fighting, with our lawyers, to find out what goes on,” Cellino said of the decision to drop the Italian company a year before their six-year deal with Leeds United concluded and instead bring in Kappa, who produced Cagliari’s kit during his time as president of the Sardinian club. Several sources also suggest that Kappa funds were used for the signing of striker Chris Wood from Leicester City for a fee which could rise to around £3m.

Football administrators familiar with the running of Leeds have expressed surprise that a shirt supplier would be replaced before their contract expires, with one suggesting that Cellino was “very, very unhappy with Macron and just decided to end it”.

Macron’s chief financial officer, Carlo Pelloni, told The Independent, that the firm had been “saddened” by Leeds’ decision to end the relationship. “Leeds had been one of our flagship clubs in England. Our relationship went back to 2008,” he said. “We take this very seriously.” Speaking from the company’s base in Bologna, Pelloni said the impending legal proceedings prevented him from discussing the details of the case.

United’s results for the 2013-14 financial year revealed the club were in “contractual dispute” with Macron, whose six-year agreement signed in 2010 was due to end next summer. According to the accounts, Macron was claiming £2.15m “allegedly owed” to the company and was also seeking damages of between £2.5m and £3.5m. United’s accounts stated that a club solicitor “believes that it is unlikely that the claim will be successful”.

The case is one of a number which may hit Leeds, bearing out the portrait of the club provided earlier this week by The Independent as one in a state of administrative and legal chaos under Cellino. A well-placed source suggested that the club faces 30 legal challenges as a result of non-payment or contractual disputes. Cellino insisted there were “three or four”, including Macron and former shirt sponsor, Enterprise Insurance, which had an agreement with Leeds running to 2016 but whose logos are missing from the front of United’s shirt this season.

Cellino faces an employment tribunal relating to the dismissal of long-serving Academy welfare officer and Leeds Ladies player Lucy Ward, though the Italian told this newspaper on Saturday evening that he had “never heard” of her. He has passed the blame for her dismissal to Adam Pearson, the experienced former Derby County and Hull City executive brought into the club in May, who left four months later. Pearson indicated that he is not willing to enter into a debate with Cellino.

Also in the pipeline could be a Football Association charge over a possible breach of third-party ownership rules when bringing Brazilian Adryan to Elland Road on loan last season. The FA is understood still to be examining the case, with the complexities of such investigations the reason why no development has so far been forthcoming.

Cellino has said that the legal challenges which the club faces are a result of mismanagement by previous regimes and huge financial demands by the legal profession. “We have a legal case that has cost us £2m [in legal fees] and the case that it relates to [would only cost us] £500,000,” he said – a reference to a defamation case he inherited relating to an article in the Leeds match programme. “I’m still paying lawyers £2m for nothing. These things don’t belong to me. Trust me, every 15 days those problems come back. And I say: ‘Listen, I’m not paying lawyers just to get to the end of the case. It doesn’t belong to us.’ I ask my lawyers to find a way to stop.”

Cellino has formally challenged the Football League’s attempts to disqualify him from running the club because of his conviction on a charge of tax evasion in Cagliari. The Italian has until Wednesday to launch the appeal against his disqualification, and the paperwork has already been lodged. “In England it [the legal system] is different. You make your answer,” he said. “In Italy, there are three stages of a trial and until the third [is concluded] you are innocent. I am not guilty.”