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Sky journalist: This is what a PL club owner has told me about Leeds being handed promotion
Sky Sports reporter Kaveh Solhekol has said a Premier League club owner has told him he wants Leeds United and West Brom handed promotion and for the Premier League to be a 22-team division for the 20/21 campaign – if the remaining fixtures can’t be played.
The Premier League and the FA put on a united front on Monday and re-iterated that relegation and promotion from and to the top flight would happen even if the season couldn’t be completed.
However, that doesn’t look like being the end of it with Solhekol saying it will likely end in the courts however relegation is decided.
Talking on Sky Sports News (Tuesday, 1pm), Solhekol said, “It is likely it will end in the courts if the season doesn’t resume.
“There are different opinions about how it could be resolved with a points-per-game table. If that were to happen, Bournemouth, Norwich and Villa would be relegated.
“If you use a weighted points-per-game table then different teams would be relegated.
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“if either of these scenarios would come to pass I don’t think any of those teams would take it lying down.
“Relegation would cost them probably about £200m and that is why one of the club owners I was speaking to said if the season was cancelled his preferred option was for there to be no relegation and two teams, Leeds and West Brom to go up, and next season to be a 22-team league just for one season.
“This same club owner was saying there was a 40% chance that football would not restart.”
This view isn’t without its supporters. On The Football Show on Tuesday morning (Sky Sports, 9am), Gary Neville said he thought it would be unfair for any teams to be relegated if the remaining fixtures weren’t played.
The aim is still to play the games but the idea of doing this at neutral venues has met with a lot of resistance and the Premier League has gone back to the government to test the feasibility of playing at home and away stadiums.
It sounds like there are still going to be a lot of twists and turns along the way.
The next step would be to get a definitive date to resume.
After that, it either gets played out or abandoned. If it does get abandoned, clubs would be waiting to see how the Premier League proposes to work out finishing positions. At that point it could go to the courts.
The good news, from the Leeds perspective, is that there has been no mention of taking promotion off the table.
In fact, this one club owner, wants Leeds and West Brom up.
It means the Leeds legal hackles can stay down – at least for now.
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