EFL could lose 60 teams if fans are absent next season, claims Huddersfield owner

The English Football League could lose up to 60 sides through bankruptcy if clubs are required to play in empty stadiums next season, the Huddersfield Town owner Phil Hodgkinson has warned.

Hodgkinson said the domestic football pyramid could be destroyed as a result of the ban placed on supporters attending matches during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He added that clubs are currently surviving only because creditors have agreed to defer payments due to them. “The problem is not whether we finish [this] season or not, it is what happens after that,” Hodgkinson, whose side were 18th in the Championship when the season was suspended, told the BBC.

“If we don’t come to an agreement there will be no football pyramid. There are clubs I know of that are only still trading because they are deferring wages and [tax] and other creditors. They will need paying at some point.

“There is an absolutely real, stark probability that if something isn’t agreed now within football to ensure all clubs can pay their bills and get through to the point where income is resumed, you will be looking at 50 or 60 clubs ceasing to exist. Genuinely, I am talking about that many.”

Hodgkinson issued his warning as it emerged that only two people tested positive for coronavirus in the Championship, both from Hull City.

The Football League revealed encouraging results from the second tier’s first wave of testing, with the two positive results from 1,014 players and staff who were tested across the division at the end of last week.

Hull did not clarify whether the positive tests were from players or staff, but did say that both were asymptomatic and “feeling no ill effects”. They will now go into self-isolation for seven days before being tested again.

The news of the two positive tests came just hours after Telegraph Sport revealed that Hull had launched a furious attack on the EFL over its plans to restart the Championship season.

Ahead of Monday’s return to training, Hull vice-chairman Ehab Allam insisted in a letter to the EFL that the risks were too great for the season to resume.

Allam wrote that Championship clubs were being “exposed to entirely unnecessary legal and financial risks” because of the “inappropriate haste” with which they were being encouraged to return to training.

It is understood that a number of clubs in the Championship have been infuriated by Hull’s strong opposition to restarting the competition.

Hull are one place above the relegation zone after failing to win a league game since New Year’s Day and selling key players Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki.

The EFL said only those who had tested negative for coronavirus would be allowed to enter training-ground facilities when training resumes this week, although all players and staff must still complete a screening protocol to detect any symptoms.

The Championship’s percentage of positive results in the first round of testing is lower than the percentage in the Premier League, which had six out of 748 players and club staff in its first wave. On Saturday night, the Premier League announced that the second wave of testing had produced just two positive results from 996 players and staff, meaning that tests in the latter part of last week produced a total of four positives out of 2,010 players and staff in the top two divisions.