Kinnear blasts ‘Maoist’ plans for new regulator

Leeds United chief executive Angus Kinnear has sparked an angry reaction after comparing an independent regulator for English football to the Maoist regime responsible for killing millions in China.

Kinnear, writing in his matchday programme notes ahead of the Premier League fixture against Crystal

Palace last night, took aim at former sports minister Tracey Crouch’s fanled review of the sport.

Crouch called on the Government to create a new regulator and proposed a 10 per cent transfer levy to help the wider football pyramid.

Top-flight chairmen are set to gather on Friday in an emergency meeting to oppose the reform.

“Football is a private-sector business and has flourished,” Kinnear said. “Enforcing upon football a philosophy akin to Maoist collective agriculturalism (which students of ‘The Great Leap Forward’ will know culminated in the greatest famine in history) will not make the English game fairer, it will kill the competition which is its very lifeblood.

“It came as no surprise, in a week where the glorious leader of our nation enthralled the globe with his searing insights on Peppa Pig World, that his government should back the report calling for Whitehall to formally meddle in both the UK’S greatest foreign export and also the deepest and most flourishing professional pyramid in world football.”

Kinnear faced accusations that his comments were distasteful, while Gary Neville tweeted: “Anyone remember when Leeds were in the Championship sweating like crazy over their own financial state if they didn’t go up? How has it come to this within 12 months? Surely even Leeds fans don’t like these programme notes on the fan-led review.”