Derby County owner Mel Morris has claimed that Leeds United’s drop off in form was related to the controversy around 'Spygate'.
The incident in January saw Leeds handed a £200,000 fine after they sent a member of staff to watch the Rams training ahead of their fixture, with manager Marcelo Bielsa then admitting he viewed several other teams' training sessions, including Bristol City .
The EFL has now introduced a new rule to prevent 'spying' by clubs within 72 hours of any match.
Leeds won the ‘Spygate’ game 2-0 but eventually missed out on automatic promotion before losing in the play-offs to Derby last month.
Morris has now revealed that he believes 'Spygate' played a key part in Leeds' failure to win promotion.
He told talkSPORT: “Prior to Spygate Leeds were flying at two-points-a-game and after Spygate dropped down to less than 1.6-a-game,”
“Now, is that down to Spygate? I don’t know, but you have to say there’s a correlation between those things that says maybe there’s a benefit from this.”
Between the start of the season and January 10, when Spygate first came to light, Leeds took an average of 1.92 points per game. After that date until the end of the season they claimed 1.65.
Morris also discussed the punishment handed down to Leeds with Bristol City owner Steve Lansdown a vocal advocate of the potential for a points deduction for bringing the league into disrepute.
He added: "It’s up to the EFL to do whatever they feel is right in those situations.
“What I would say is you only have to look at some of the situations where maybe there’s a set-play routine that’s particularly intricate and successful that someone spotted on the training field could massively change the result of a game.
“To know someone’s going to change the formation they’re going to play. Let’s take our second leg against Leeds in the semi-finals and Frank played a diamond for the first time.
“If somebody had known we were going to play a diamond I guarantee they would have set up differently against us and probably might have changed that result.
“There’s definitely no doubt having additional information about a club changes them. Now, if everyone’s allowed to do it, in a different culture, it’s neutral, the effect is neutral.
“It’s only when someone does it in the environment and the rest aren’t doing it you gain an advantage from it.”
Bristol City kick off the 2019/20 season with the visit of Leeds to Ashton Gate on Sunday, August 4.
