Peterborough slam EFL after League One campaign is cut short

The owner of Sunderland's League One rival Peterborough United has hit out at the EFL after the 2019-20 campaign was cut short.

Darragh MacAnthony has criticised the EFL's handling of the crucial vote on Tuesday which saw the League One and League Two seasons curtailed, with the table decided on points-per-game meaning Posh and Sunderland missed out on the play-offs.

MacAnthony has been outspoken on the process and has hit out at football clubs for voting against playing football.

"Every letter from the EFL stated that we wanted to finish the season and we went along with that," MacAnthony said.

"I spoke to Rick Parry, the chairman, in May and I said to him, 'What are we doing? Things seem to be improving'.

“And he said, 'We want to finish the season, there's no reasonnottofinishtheseason' so again we went along with that. We voted for football. We will always vote for football. I understand the health concerns, but we've now been told football is back - the Premier League is back, the Championship is back.

“The EFL is 71 clubs and we've been told we can't play football so it's devastation and disappointment."

MacAnthony also said he was disappointed the EFL had not done more to balance out Tuesday'sbadnewsbypresenting plans to start next season, or to provide financial relief as clubs struggle with the loss of revenue.

"So many things could have been done in the last four or five weeks that weren't done," he said. "That's why I'm disappointed with the EFL.

“It would have been lovely to find out what are we looking at starting date wise. Have you, the EFL, had a conversation with the PFA about wage cuts?

"Because you're going to have a lot of players unemployed and the PFA are going to have to go to their members and, with what's happened with the pandemic you're going to have to have a wage cut and we need the PFA's agreement with that, it's going to be good for the players, it's going to keep them in jobs and clubs in survival."

*PremierLeagueclubshave unanimouslyapprovedreturn to play protocols & a matchday operations plan ahead of the scheduled restart next week.

“It is understood protocols for the third stage of Project Restart - following sociallydistancedtrainingandfullcontacttraining-weresignedoffat yesterday’sleague’sshareholders’ meeting.