The Football League has hit out at Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas over his call for B teams.
They have branded Villas-Boas' call for the top clubs to be allowed to field reserve sides in the Championship as "offensive".
Football League chief operating officer Andy Williamson told the Daily Express: "The suggestion that Football League clubs should become feeder clubs to a select handful of elite clubs is frankly offensive to the hundreds of thousands of people that watch competitive professional football in our competition every weekend."
"The Championship is the fourth most watched league in European football and crowds in our three divisions comfortably outstrip equivalent competitions in all of the other major footballing nations.
"One of the main reasons for this success is that our clubs are constituted as sovereign entities which represent their town or city with pride, rather than being a subsidiary of another club in another part of the country."He added: "These are senior professional football matches that matter - they are not just platforms for developing other clubs' players.