Quinn hits out at fellow chairmen

Quinn insists Sunderland will not make panic buys

Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has hit out at his Premiership counterparts who have inflated the transfer market.

Quinn singled out West Ham and Portsmouth as the chief culprits.

He said: "There's six or seven new owners who are spending money, but are they getting the type of player that the top four want? I don't think so.

"If I was going to spend a fortune on breaking the bank, I would be going after the players Liverpool or Manchester United wanted to sign."

What horrifies me is people who have made money out of property or biscuit tins telling a class act who's managing their club who they should be signing. Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn

Quinn added: "But, in the middle, people are fighting each other and raising the prices for the same players. You can see it with West Ham and Portsmouth.

"The agents are having an absolute 'beano'. It's like a property market, where estate agents own half the property or, in West Ham's case, it looks like all the property."

Sunderland have spent £17.5m this summer and manager Roy Keane is still in the market for more players.

606: DEBATE Coming from a bloke who's paid £5.5m for a player that Man U DON'T want I'm confused by his logic thefench

However, Quinn insists that the difference between him and other chairmen is that his only involvement has been signing the cheques.

He said: "What horrifies me is people who have made money out of property or biscuit tins telling a class act who's managing their club who they should be signing.

"That's for the birds, but it happens in a lot of cases. I see players signing and chairmen standing there with the jersey and their arms around the player and I say 'Oh my God, what are they doing?' It's their call, they may be like that and may be in it for that, but it's not right.

"If I start telling Roy Keane who to sign, I'm going against my own doctrine. Football is football, administration is administration.

"I'm 100% behind Roy on this. People are being pressurised into signing players from videos and giving agents lots of money. We won't do that. We have to keep our heads when this is going on."