Leeds United Chief Executive Angus Kinnear has hit out at Liverpool and Manchester United for their "treacherous" Project Big Picture proposal.
The Reds played a key role alongside Manchester United in backing a plan to bail out the EFL and redistribute TV money, which was heavily backed by a number of lower league clubs and chairman Rick Parry.
However, the plans didn't sit well with their top-flight counterparts and the proposal was killed dead in a Premier League meeting, with support from the FA, fans and government who united to oppose it.
Writing in his programme notes for Monday’s defeat to Wolves, Kinnear said: “This week, followers of football politics will have revelled in the particularly colourful publication of Project Big Picture.
“Fortunately for the domestic game, if the press reports are to be believed, a Faustian pact that would have made Machiavelli blush was as transparent as it was treacherous.
“Hence, one of the most unedifying episodes in the glorious history of the Premier League was suitably short-lived as The FA, Football Supporters Association and (in a rare moment of clarity) the government joined all 20 clubs in the Premier League in unanimously denouncing the plan.”
Kinnear also took aim at the government over their coronavirus restrictions which ban fans at EFL and Championship games but allowed supporters to see Arsene Wenger inside a London theatre.
“The government must play its part and not persist in their discriminating in their treatment of football in favour of other comparable industries,” he continued.
“The safe and phased return of crowds is key to all levels of our game, but particularly to the lower leagues (many of whom normally operate below capacity naturally facilitating a proportion of the required social distancing).
“The Government needs to quickly rationalise how the indoor London Palladium can be 50 per cent full for an ‘Evening with Arsene Wenger’, but the same number of people can’t be outdoors in the stadium he inspired which is 26 times bigger.”
