Bradford City have appealed to the Football League to switch their vital Premiership promotion match against Oxford to Sunday so that main rivals Ipswich do not have an unfair advantage.

Ipswich play at Birmingham on Sunday in front of Sky TV cameras the day after City are due to play Oxford at Valley Parade, but chairman Geoffrey Richmond wants both matches to be played on Sunday at 1pm.

Their request has been strongly rejected by Oxford, who are battling against relegation, and also by the League, but Richmond has appealed to the league's chief executive Richard Scudamore for a re-think. His decision is expected today.

Richmond is concerned that if City beat Oxford or only draw against them, Birmingham's outside chance of automatic promotion will have gone and they will not be as motivated to beat Ipswich as they would if the incentive of taking second place were still alive.

"We have applied to the league on the basis that we are looking for a level playing field with Ipswich," said Richmond.

"We are aware that Birmingham are five points behind ourselves and Ipswich, and if we get a point on Saturday Birmingham can only then get into the play-offs.

"Football League rules state that on the last day of the season all clubs playing meaningful games have to kick-off at the same time. This means that the league accept that clubs may behave differently in meaningful games than in non-meaningful games.

"We think that Ipswich will have potentially an unfair advantage playing at 1pm on Sunday against a demotivated Birmingham side.

"Oxford want to play on Saturday and the league have upheld that view, but we have taken the issue to the chief executive and we are awaiting his decision. The police have given their permission for the game to be switched."

Not surprisingly, there were long queues of supporters yesterday anxious to watch this important last home match, and the few remaining tickets were expected to be snapped up today to give City a 15,000 sell-out crowd.

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