Leeds United chief Angus Kinnear hits out at government's 'frustratingly small' 2,000 and 4,000 stadium capacities

Leeds has been placed in Tier 3 now that lockdown is over, which means no fans are allowed to attend Elland Road games, although Kinnear is hopeful the city will move into Tier 2 in the near future.

When they do, under current guidelines, a crowd of 2,000 could watch Marcelo Bielsa's Whites at home, but Kinnear does not believe the capacities are related to scientific advice.

"I think they are frustratingly small, I don't think they're, to quote the government, based on the science," he said.

"Before lockdown it was looking possible that we might get 2,000, then 25 per cent, then back to nothing, then we had the Tiers.

"I don't know what has changed in their position from saying we couldn't have anybody to suddenly saying 2,000."

Another issue for Kinnear is what he sees as a one-size-fits-all approach that means the size of a club's stadium is not taken into account.

"It makes no sense that the capacities are not linked to the size of stadia and we haven't had any clear or coherent rationale as to why you can have 4,000 at Accrington Stanley and 4,000 at Old Trafford, it makes no sense," he said.

Ultimately, however, Leeds United welcome the return of fans in whatever numbers possible in order to begin proving it is safe to allow more into grounds, even if they themselves are currently forced to play home games behind closed doors.

Bielsa questioned the sporting integrity of allowing other clubs, like Saturday's hosts Chelsea, to have supporters in the ground at a time when not every club can do so but Kinnear takes the position that the best course of action for football in general was to start somewhere.

"The Premier League as a whole and all the clubs have made a collective decision that we want to take a step of getting supporters back, even in the smallest way possible," he said.

"The step from no supporters to some supporters is the biggest one. Once we've got over that barrier we can start to move up in increments.

"The ideal would be that it was a level playing field but we're not working in a world of ideals. We fully respect Marcelo's opinion on how it may impact the sporting integrity but for the league as a whole and the health of British football it was just more important that we got fans back in some capacity. I have absolute faith in Marcelo and the team to overcome any small imbalances that may be caused by Chelsea having a small number of supporters there."