Furious Paphitis hits out at Burns

13 April 2012

Millwall chairman Theo Paphitis launched an astonishing attack on Football League chief executive David Burns today following the £178million court defeat against Carlton and Granada.

He turned on the League's handling of the case and accused Burns of being "unable to run a kebab shop".

Paphitis, one of the strongest critics of the current regime, slated the League for their "amateur" approach to running the 72-team set-up and their handling of the ITV Digital crisis. He also accused Carlton and Granada of "shafting" the clubs.

Paphitis said: "The League have stumbled from one disaster to another, with first ITV Digital and then renegotiating the contract with Sky.

"The League must be totally restructured. It's archaic and amateurish and needs to get professional.

"It's a billion-pound business - but if I had a kebab shop, I wouldn't let them run it. I'm not impressed with their handling of this and think the outcome-could have been different. There's no doubt Carlton and Granada have shafted us, but they were allowed to shaft us.

"The League should have had more dialogue with Carlton and Granada - and had more legal advice, as they have now ended up in court and lost several million quid."

And Paphitis claims Burns is in no doubt of his opinion of him. "I've been vocal in what I think of David Burns," he said.

"I made that point at the last Football League meeting. Quite a few of us are very unhappy with the League executive and have told them what we think of them."

The Millwall chief added: "We knew we wouldn't get the money so we anticipated, made changes and trimmed our squad.

"But some clubs were holding on for the judgement in the blind hope that something would come of it. Now they're in trouble."

Furious Paphitis hits out at Burns

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