Massimo Cellino, the Italian businessman who has agreed in principle to buy Leeds United, would very likely be approved by the Football League as a "fit and proper person" to own the club, despite a conviction for a fraud-related offence and a continuing investigation into him for alleged embezzlement. However, a rival consortium will meet with the Leeds owners on Tuesday in a late attempt to take control of the club.

The Football League's "owners and directors test", formerly the "fit and proper person test", disqualifies people from owning or being a director of one of its clubs if they have "unspent" criminal convictions for offences of dishonesty, including fraud. Cellino's lawyer in Italy, Giovanni Cocco, confirmed to the Guardian that Cellino, the owner since 1992 of Serie A club Cagliari Calcio, was convicted of a fraud offence in 1996, although Cocco said it was expunged on appeal.

In 2001 Cellino, an agriculture magnate known as "the king of corn", was convicted of false accounting at Cagliari and given a 15-month suspended sentence.

Last year he was arrested as part of an investigation into whether public money was improperly used to finance building part of Cagliari's stadium, accusations Cocco said Cellino will strenuously deny.

Neither the conviction nor the current investigation appear to bar Cellino from taking over an English professional football club. The question of whether a conviction is "spent" is determined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which sets a time of 10 years for the offences Cellino committed and the sentences he received.

Cellino's conviction, in 2001, approaching 13 years ago, would be considered "spent" in English law, said Joy Merriam, a criminal specialist solicitor on the Law Society council.

"If the facts are as reported, he would appear to be able to rely on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, and the conviction is spent," Merriam said.

Cellino, whose lawyer in England, Chris Farnell, purported to sack Leeds manager Brian McDermott on Friday, still has an agreement in principle to buy Leeds from Bahrain-based owners Gulf Finance House, although the deal has not yet been signed.

GFH will meet on Tuesday with another consortium attempting to secure ownership of the club, including Mike Farnan and Andrew Flowers, who were both involved in separate bids last month.

Farnan, formerly managing director at Manchester United International, believes Cellino's deal for Leeds has not been completed. He told the Guardian: "Agreeing and doing are two different things.

"We hope that there is a window of opportunity to settle this. The team that we have working on this are good people within the industry, they are businessmen and football people combined. We want to sort this mess out once and for all."

McDermott, speaking about his purported sacking and reinstatement by a GFH announcement which he read on his iPad, said on Monday: "Whether it [his sacking] was illegal or not, I don't know. But whoever sacked the manager has to own the football club.

"My personal feelings are that I want to be Leeds United manager and that's it. First and foremost nothing else matters. That hasn't changed. I have to say the support I have received personally has been fantastic. Whatever happens we don't need another day that we have had. We need some calm."