Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan believes Bristol City should not be cut any slack over a Financial Fair Play punishment because there is no common sense to their previous business model.
On Wednesday, chairman Jon Lansdown estimated up to seven Championship clubs could fall foul of FFP restrictions that require clubs not to make a loss of over £39m over a three-year period.
City are one of those clubs who are likely to fail the EFL's Profit & Sustainability rules for next season having posted losses of £38.4m following the collapse of the transfer market.
Lansdown spoke about City's model in order to balance the books and highlighted the importance of the transfer window to help generate funds in a sustainable manner. A process which allowed them to make a £10.9m profit in 2018/19, which has helped meet the P&S criteria for this season.
He said: "We've all got slightly different models in how we do it but you can see our track record, we used the transfer market to have a slightly higher wage bill that a club of our size would normally have, and that's been a perfectly valid way to operate over a number of years, and we've done it pretty well."
"Part of that has completely dropped off, through no foreseeable fault of our own and if you want to classify that as a mistake, it's certainly an honest one."
Jordan, who was Palace chairman for 10 years and admitted to once throwing a cup of coffee at owner Steve Lansdown, had little sympathy and claimed the club will reap what they have sown following reports the club's losses equate to £412,000-a-week for the last 10 years.
When asked by TalkSPORT host Jim White whether City should be cut some slack due to the financial impact of the pandemic, he responded: "No, not really, because they go on to discuss the model that they run their business on, is based upon go on and buy and sell players to underpin their financial fair play adherence.
"You cannot underpin your business with things that may not happen, you cannot build a cup run into your cash flows to suggest you're going to get to the quarter-finals of the cup or get knocked out in the third round because that's all you can ever budget for - common sense prevails.
"You've got to maintain a certain degree of control. Bristol City are one of these clubs that are running their wage to turnover ratio at a very precarious position.
"Look at Reading, where they have 120% of wages against turnover that means if their turnover is £20m, they're paying their players £24m. The bottom line is you've got to have sustainable.
"At the beginning of the season, you might want to put in your budget for yourself as a funder, what you might want to sell players but you can't balance your FFP regulations obligations on your profit and loss and profit and sustainability - these are the reasons why clubs like Bristol City are having a slight conundrum meeting the obligations of FFP."
Both Derby and Reading have faced points deductions this season over the handling of their finances and White raised the point whether the EFL will feel embarrassed if they have to offer points deduction to seven clubs.
Jordan fired back: "Tough luck, these are the rules if you want this game to be sustainable, make it fair and equitable. Make sure that the landscape isn't overly prejudicial and enforce it."
The EFL did announce amendments to the P&S, as voted on by clubs, which include clubs being able to claim £5m back in lost revenues for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 Covid-impacted campaigns.
Manager Nigel Pearson shared his thoughts on City's previous business model in Thursday's press conference in which he labelled as "bonkers", as he deals with the financial fallout in trying to shape his squad.
He said: "We've got ourselves into a mess, as a football club, by having a previous strategy to build a squad, and that is spending too much money and then having to sell to stay viable, which is bonkers. Who does that?
"Now, hopefully we'll get to a point where our wage bill is manageable and we'll still create players who will be great for us and we will at some point (have to sell), and I'll never intend to stop a player's long-term ambitions to play in the Premier League, but our aim is still to get there.
"It might take longer than we hope but what's really important is you get the foundations right, because the foundations haven't been right."
SIGN UP: For our daily Robins newsletter, bringing you the latest from Ashton Gate
