The 2020-21 English Football League season may not start until crowds are allowed back into matches as its chairman Rick Parry said the desire to finish the current season was more to do with sporting integrity than a financial imperative.

Parry, who warned it would get “very messy” if the Premier League blocked teams being promoted out of the Championship, spoke about the immediate and longer term challenges facing the EFL which have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic when he addressed MPs at a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee hearing on Tuesday morning.

He said the EFL needed a “reset” and said discussions around salary caps and other cost controls were taking place, while steps would be needed to address the immediate £200m “cash hole” he said clubs were facing by the end of September.

Parry stressed the EFL was very much a spectator sport and said there would have to be discussions, beyond finishing the current campaign, over whether there was any sense in starting the next one before crowds were allowed back.

“At League One and Two level, gate receipts represent 32 per cent of income, slightly less than that in the Championship. Gate receipts are absolutely fundamental and that applies not just to this season but increasingly it applies to next season,” he said.

“I think we have to think long and hard about how we go about starting next season, or indeed whether we start next season without crowds.”

Asked how much money clubs would retrieve if the current season could be finished, Parry said: “If we were starting behind closed doors it’s finely balanced economically. It’s probably almost neutral and for many clubs it would actually cost them to play.

In response to Parry’s comments, a Premier League spokesperson said: “Parachute payments give newly promoted clubs the confidence to invest in their squads to be competitive in the Premier League.

“They are also a vital mechanism to give relegated clubs financial support while adjusting to significantly lower revenues and having a higher cost base related to their playing squads.

“The EFL Championship is a highly competitive league with attendances, viewing figures and revenues the envy of second-tier leagues around the world. We see no evidence that parachute payments distort performance at that level and are an essential part of this highly competitive environment.

“We also provide solidarity payments to every other EFL Club, payments without parallel elsewhere in leagues around the world.”