Rick Parry singing from Leeds United hymn sheet but proof of EFL conviction is in the pudding

Leeds United supporters, who sing about the EFL on a regular basis and not often in complimentary tones, found themselves in an unfamiliar position as they nodded along in agreement with an EFL chief expressing opinion after opinion that chimed with Whites.

Parry came out fighting, for three Championship promotion places, for relegation from the Premier League, for a reboot of football finance and for an end to parachute payments.

It was stirring stuff, if you’re a supporter of a club sitting top of the Championship with nine games remaining and a club that has had to squeeze every last drop out of commercial revenue streams to compete with rivals whose spending power is supercharged by Premier League money that ultimately rewards their failure in dropping out of the top flight. Leeds as a club are preparing as best they can for a return to football. The coaching and playing staff are working towards the provisional date suggested by the game’s authorities for a resumption of training – May 16.

If, and it remains very much an if, Championship squads are to be back in training grounds midway through this month, Leeds will do so in a manner befitting the meticulous methodology of Marcelo Bielsa.

Their hope has always been to be able to play for the right to call themselves a Premier League club, once it was safe to do so. There is a confidence, born of improvements made in on-field performance this season and the five-game winning streak they put together before the Championship was suspended, that there would be no repeat of the 2018/19 heartbreak.

Not being good enough to finish off the job has not been a concern that has entered the conversation either at Elland Road or among Leeds fans during the lockdown. Rather, the possibility that promotion would somehow be denied them if the season was not concluded on the pitch, is perhaps the greatest fear and worst possible outcome – in a footballing sense.

So each word of Parry’s warning that promotion to and relegation from the Premier League is still an EFL expectation and any removal of it would cause legal mayhem, will have been cheered to the rafters in the home of every Leeds fan.

It would appear that the fanbase who view the game’s authorities with more suspicion than most, may well have found an advocate who will fight their corner if decisions have to be made off the field. The talk of a financial reset for an industry whose chickens of wild expenditure and wages have now come home to roost and the assurance that the health of a League Two player is just as important as that of a Premier League star, were welcome statements too.

The proof will be in the pudding, of course, for all of Parry’s well-intentioned talk.

What happens between now and the start of the 2020/21 season, whenever it might be, will tell us an awful lot about just how important players, supporters and clubs are to our government, the Premier League, the FA, PFA and EFL.

And when Leeds fans return to Elland Road, the presence or absence on the songlist of the ‘EFL song’ will say much about whether or not Parry has the courage of his convictions.