Leeds United’s owner Massimo Cellino met the first team playing staff today.

The Italian businessman, who is also club president, met all the players one to one and spoke of the respect shown on all fronts, although he wishes the content of the meetings to remain private.

However, the belief that the players have not been paid for the last month was supposedly one of the items on the agenda.

The Sky Bet Championship club were hit by a winding-up petition after missing the date to repay a £1m loan from Sport Capital, and manager Brian McDermott left the club by mutual consent on Friday night.

“I met all the players today and they showed me that they wanted to stay at the club,” said Cellino.

“They work for the club, not Massimo Cellino. They showed me respect and a have a fantastic professionalism towards the club.

“We have a better team than we first thought. All the players are hungry to be involved in this new project at Leeds United.”

Defender Scott Wootton admitted some of the players were frustrated at being called back from their time off, with the first-team squad not due to return for pre-season training until Thursday, June 26.

He said before the meeting with Cellino: “I’m sure the lads will have to had change flights – I’m not sure what's going to happen over that. I’m sure the lads are frustrated.”

On the issue of not being paid, he added: “No-one’s spoken to anyone. Hopefully we’ll find out all about that in this meeting.”

Meanwhile, it has been announced that the club’s pre-season schedule will commence in Santa Cristina, Val Gardena in Italy, with dates yet to be confirmed.