Leeds United chairman Andrea Radrizzani has said he would never emulate Derby County by buying the stadium in order to get around EFL regulations.
The outspoken Italian, who has criticised his Derby counterpart Mel Morris on a number of occasions in recent weeks, does not appear to be lying down on this issue and has questioned the ethics of the Rams chairman.
Derby have skirted past profitability and sustainability regulations that stipulate clubs must not record losses of £39m over a three-year period, by selling their stadium to a sister club.
While buying the stadium would not be an option currently for Radrizzani, as his firm Greenfield Investment, which is a part of his Aser Group already owns it, this would not be a route he would consider going down if circumstances were different.
Radrizzani, who previously positioned himself as an ally of Morris as they attempted to leverage a better broadcasting deal from the Football League, said that the financial manoeuvre was a more severe form of cheating than 'Spygate' controversy , which resulted in a £200,000 fine.
Speaking to Jim White on TalkSport , the Leeds chairman responded to claims from Morris that he’s doing this because he’s hurting after the play-off semi-final defeat.
“Like every Leeds fan I'm disappointed because we were top of the league for most of the season until Easter time,” he said. “But I hope this will be a lesson for us, for our players, to try and put the fire in their hearts and come back with the spirit, the desire, the willing to win the league next year, so I'm looking forward to next year, I'm already motivated.
“But no it wasn't that we had limitations from the financial fair play, because we cannot sell the stadium to another sister company, even if we could, I wouldn't do it because of ethics.”
The loophole is perfectly legal, and Sheffield Wednesday and potentially Aston Villa are reportedly be set to follow their lead , but many have questioned the integrity of the move.
White also asked Radrizzani if he was learning since taking over two years ago.
“I'm learning, yeah.” he responded. “There are rules and values that we should take on and I think that what we have done with the scout, even if he was coming from a different culture, what we have done sending the scouts to most of the opponents teams to watch the training is potentially not correct and not ethically correct, so we paid the price for it and I think it was fair.”
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