Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has denied claims from Birmingham City that he misled Blues fans when he said his club turned down television money in favour of a traditional three o'clock kick-off against Derby.
Birmingham owner David Sullivan - who has been criticised by his own fans after their 1-0 win over Stoke City was played at the widely unpopular time of 11.30am earlier this month - has accused Quinn of lying when he claimed to have rejected a lucrative Sky Sports of 5.15pm.
When asked to explain why the club had not turned down television money to appease fans after Quinn's alleged decision to start this Saturday's crunch match against Derby at 3 pm, Sullivan claimed the Sunderland supremo had no say in the fixture.
A club statement read: "The Football League informed us that Sunderland categorically did not turn down the Sky fixture in question.
"In fact, Sky de-selected the game on the basis Derby may have been involved in an FA Cup replay, therefore there was no decision for Sunderland to make.
"The league further informed us no league club have the right to refuse games selected for Sky TV.
"We will be taking the matter up with the Football League as Mr Quinn has publicly claimed that the league have lied to Birmingham."
Quinn, however, has been quick to respond to the allegations by insisting Sullivan has his facts mixed up.
"I'm very upset the integrity of our club has been questioned over a misunderstanding between the chairman of another club and the Football League," he told The Journal. "David Sullivan has misunderstood the facts and it is disappointing our club are now being publicly challenged on this issue."
The Derby fixture was originally scheduled to be played next Monday but with the Rams progressing to the FA Cup fifth round, with a replay a possibility, the Football League opted to revert to Saturday February 24th.
"We were given the option to retain a live television fixture with a 5.15pm (Saturday) kick-off," added Quinn.
"Myself, (chief executive) Peter Walker and (manager) Roy (Keane) discussed this at length and we took the option to forego the televised fixture in favour of a traditional 3pm kick-off, hoping this would help the team and meet with the approval of our supporters.
"The bottom line is we turned down a significant amount of money to benefit our team and our fans."
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