Hull City owner Acun Ilicali said the club would take legal action if they do not win Saturday's Championship play-off final against Middlesbrough, hours before the showdown at Wembley Stadium.
Ilicali made the comments outside Wembley before kick-off, saying his legal team had told him the club had to pursue action. He said Hull wanted justice and argued that if justice is broken, nobody will enjoy football.
The dispute centres on Middlesbrough's return to the play-offs after Southampton admitted spying on the Teessiders' training session. Southampton were expelled from the competition on Tuesday, and their appeal was rejected the following day, leaving the decision to be made just 72 hours before the final.
Ilicali, who took over Hull in 2022, called the decision to let Middlesbrough re-enter the play-offs unbelievable. He said that if the breach was serious enough to remove a team from the competition, Southampton should have been stopped before the semi-final rather than after it had already been played. He also questioned why Wrexham had been left out of the process, saying they should have been put back into the draw if another club was removed.
The Hull chairman said he had kept quiet until the players were inside the stadium because he did not want their focus disturbed. Even then, he said the matter remained deeply questionable from a legal point of view, describing the decisions as very discussable according to his lawyers.
For Hull, the immediate priority is the final itself, with the club trying to block out a controversy that has shadowed the build-up to Wembley. Ilicali made clear that the squad had to be strong enough to handle the distraction, but the wider fight over what happened off the field may not end when the whistle blows.
