Ex-Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino admits huge manager sacking 'mess', it's beyond belief

Former Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino admits his early poor English led to the unwanted sacking of the club's coach - when he in fact had only wanted to have a couch removed.

The Italian started his ownership of the Elland Road club in 2014, which began an eventful three-year spell in charge of the Yorkshire club.

During that time, Cellino sacked no fewer than six managers at the Whites, including Steve Evans, Uwe Rosler and Dave Hockaday, the latter of whom was only in charge for 70 days.

Cellino's ownership ended in May 2017 when fellow Italian Andrea Radrizzani completed his buyout of the club.

It was certainly an eventful time when Cellino owned the Whites, and the Italian's first sacking came towards the closing stages of his deal to take over the club at the start of 2014.

Brian McDermott became Leeds boss in April 2013 after replacing Neil Warnock, but was sacked less than a year later in January 2014, as Cellino's ownership bid neared its conclusion.

The Italian, who now owns Serie B side Brescia in his native country, admits that when he first came to Leeds, his English was not the best and it included poor pronunciation.

This led to a big mistake being made when his then limited English was misunderstood and McDermott was dismissed as a result.

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Cellino has some superstitions, including a dislike of the number 17 and also the colour purple, both of which are considered unlucky in Italian culture.

Upon his arrival at Elland Road, they was a purple couch which Cellino did not like and wanted removed.

But as his pronunciation was so poor at the time, staff at the club thought he wanted to get rid of the coach instead, which led to McDermott's unfortunate dismissal.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Cellino said: "‘I was a mess when I got there. My English was very poor. My pronunciation was terrible.

"When I got there, there was a velvet bloody couch in the suite at Elland Road. It was purple. I said, 'Change the bloody couch, I don’t want to see it anymore'. And then they fired the bloody coach!

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"They said, 'Who is taking the team tomorrow?'

"I said, 'Why? We don’t have a manager?'. They said, 'You fired him'. 'I fired the manager? S***'.

"It was 10 at night and there were 2,000 people at the stadium who wanted to kill me. They hid me in the stadium and then took me out in a police car.

"They said, 'It is better if you don’t go to the game tomorrow'... Bloody purple!"

That has surely got to be up there with one of the most unfortunate cases of someone losing their job ever.