Leeds United CEO compares calls for English football transfer levy and regulator to Maoism and the Great Chinese Famine
- In his programme notes before his side’s game against Crystal Palace, Angus Kinnear says recommendations from fan-led review ‘flawed and radical’
- Kinnear says move will ‘kill the competition’ of the English game
Leeds United CEO Angus Kinnear has compared calls for a transfer levy and an independent regulator to Maoism and the Great Chinese Famine, adding that the recommendations would not make English football any fairer.
A transfer levy on top-flight clubs and appointment of an independent regulator for the English game were among 47 recommendations made by a fan-led review of football governance published last week.
Writing in his programme notes before Leeds’ 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on Tuesday, Kinnear said he supported the other recommendations but the two were “as flawed as they are radical”.
“Enforcing upon football a philosophy akin to Maoist collective agriculturalism (which students of ‘The Great Leap Forward’ will know culminated in the greatest famine in history) will not make the English game fairer, it will kill the competition which is its very lifeblood,” he said.
Millions died of starvation during the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward, a failed attempt at rapid industrialisation.