Tranmere set to fight EFL relegation plan

Mark Palios has promised that Tranmere Rovers will fight the recommendation of the English Football League board that would relegate the club if the League One season was curtailed.

The Tranmere owner branded the justification that relegation was “integral to the integrity of the pyramid” as “a lazy analysis and convenient sound bite” after the EFL recommended that clubs vote on whether to end the season early. Promotion, relegation and play-off places would then be determined on points-per-game, meaning third-from-bottom Tranmere would drop to League Two, even though they have a game in hand on Wimbledon, who are three points ahead and in a safe position.

“You can’t underestimate the strength of feeling running through the club and it’s a strength of feeling I don’t think will go away until the sense of injustice goes away,” Palios said. “My first response to it is anger. We’re not prepared to just take that [relegation] lying down. The cost of a legal action would pale into insignificance in comparison to the impact on the club.”

The EFL board has asked for clubs to consider its recommendations ahead of a vote and Palios has responded by making an alternative proposal that would mean clubs won promotion and competed in an expanded play-off for- mat, while voiding relegation, if the season was curtailed.

Palios, a former Football Association chief executive, does not accept the view of his former employers that relegation must take place across all divisions to protect the integrity of the football pyramid, which has been repeated as justification by the EFL.

“Why would you take an option that severely damages a club in a situation where everybody in football is already facing a financial debacle,” Palios said.

“Our proposal enhances and supports the pyramid, rather than taking what I would call a lazy analysis and a convenient sound bite that relegation is core to the integrity of the pyramid. That sound bite has been parroted by the EFL as a justification in our particular case and it’s the parroting of it by the EFL that concerns me.”

Anger: Owner Mark Palios says Tranmere feel a ‘sense of injustice’ over the EFL’S proposals