Norwich City say relegation from the Premier League should be scrapped if the top flight completes its season but the Championship does not.
Premier League clubs met on Monday to to continue talks on ‘Project Restart’ but doing away with relegation has not yet been discussed.
The league is aiming to return by 12 June, with the Canaries bottom of the table and six points from safety.
Championship clubs are due to meet on Wednesday after an EFL board meeting.
“What we could not accept is a situation where we play all our games and get relegated, but the Championship can’t play, and they automatically promote some teams who haven’t finished the season,” Norwich sporting director Stuart Webber told Sky Sports.
“For anyone who has got promoted from the Championship, it is a 46- or 49-game slog. It needs to be settled on the pitch – both coming up and going down.”
This scenario has been spoken about privately for a while and explains why there is going to be a divergence between the lower leagues of the EFL and the Championship in terms of when the 2019-20 season is finished.
The Football Association has already said it expects teams to be relegated and promoted between the top two leagues and will use its stake in the system to ensure it happens.
However, any Premier League club who find themselves replaced by a team who have not completed their season are bound to consider legal action.
Quite apart from a row over the rights and wrongs of such a move, logistically, the clubs going down would have a major problem.
They could find themselves having to turn round in a short space of time from one season into another and having to face a string of opponents who have not played a competitive game for months.