Leeds United's plan to pipe in crowd noise to help their promotion battle is reportedly set to be banned by the EFL.
Marcelo Bielsa's title-winning hopes took a dent on Sunday when Leeds lost 2-0 to Cardiff City in the Welsh capital, relinquishing the top spot to rivals West Brom.
The Yorkshire club are still primed to seal a promotion spot, though, given they are seven points ahead of third-placed Fulham with eight games to play.
But they have not had it all their own way in recent seasons and have imploded more than once, meaning they are likely to try and eke out every advantage possible over the course of the coming weeks.
The Athletic report that Leeds last week trialled measures at Elland Road to mitigate the loss of more than 35,000 supporters for home matches.
The club are manufacturing 15,000 "crowdies" — which are cardboard cutouts of fans — to be strewn across the empty seats at Elland Road in order to somewhat assuage the loss of actual supporters in the stadium.
Crucially, though, Leeds had planned to pump in artificial crowd noise too in order to atone for the absence of a typically roaring atmosphere on match days, piping it in through the sound system.
They had also trialled that last week but The Athletic report the EFL will ban Leeds from playing chants in order to prevent disputes from rival clubs.
It was a crucial weekend in terms of the promotion race.
While south Wales clubs Cardiff City and Swansea City, who thumped Middlesbrough 3-0, made a march towards the top six, the teams at the top of the tree slipped up.
West Brom moved top of the table with a draw against Birmingham City, while Leeds, Brentford, Nottingham Forest and Preston all dropped points.
Leeds host third-placed Fulham this weekend in a crucial fixture, but, importantly, there will be no artificial crowd noise blaring out to gain the hosts any sort of advantage.
West Brom play Brentford in another big promotion clash, while the Bluebirds do battle with play-off rivals Preston up at Deepdale on Saturday lunchtime.
The Swans host Championship strugglers Luton on Saturday.
