Promotion or clubs will sue says EFL boss
THE Premier League have been told they will face legal action if promotion from the Championship is scrapped this season. The emergence of a rump of relegationthreatened Premier League clubs who are against restarting the season at neutral venues has set warning lights flashing in the second tier.
Some Championship clubs fear their end game could be a cancellation of the campaign and the suspension of promotion and relegation.
But EFL boss Rick Parry, below, warned yesterday such a move would bring big trouble.
“I think you can expect that the lawyers are going to get wealthy if that happens,” he said. “There would be a degree of outrage from a number of our clubs in the Championship.
“It would be a breach of the tripartite agreement between us, the Premier League and the Football Association. I suspect the Football Association would have a position on it as well. “It would get very messy because our expectation is that there will be three clubs promoted to the Premier League. That
is what we expect. The Premier League is aware of our position on that. In all of the conversations that we’ve had with the Premier League I think they expect three clubs to be relegated.”
Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion occupy the two automatic promotion spots in the Championship, with Fulham being the leading club in the play-off spots.
The prospect of the Championship and the rest of the EFL restarting appears to be receding, with Parry telling a Department for Culture, Media and Sport hearing yesterday into the impact of Covid-19 that a final decision needed to be taken “within days”.
“Our end date realistically is July 31 because of the situation with players’ contracts. We can’t go beyond July. Critical dates are coming up for us,” said
Parry. “What do we need to do in order to comply with Government guidelines? What are the costs of testing programmes? And then the decision is going to have to be taken on whether it is really worth it. Is it feasible?
“Should we come to a point where we are focused more on next season?”