Championship clubs rebelling against a £590 million TV deal with Sky believe they have sufficient numbers to force the EFL to shred the contract, as anxiety grows over a second-tier breakaway that would be the biggest upheaval in English football since the foundation of the Premier League.

On Monday, the rebel clubs, led by Leeds United, Derby County and Aston Villa, will try to force the EFL board to back out of a five-year deal from 2019-24 which, they say, “vastly under-values” games between their 72 sides - and Championship clubs in particular. They say a majority of second-tier names support a move that would be seen as a leap in the dark and could have dire consequences for League One and Two teams.

At the root of the mutiny is long-standing anger about the disparity between Premier League and Championship incomes. Last year, Mel Morris, Derby’s owner, wrote a paper claiming that for every £1 the Premier League receives in broadcast revenues the EFL gets 5p. Morris said a TV income of £11.1m per game at the top drops to £597,000 below the Premier League’s 20 clubs, and argued that 25p would be a fairer return than the current £1 to 5p ratio.