Leeds United owners' efficiency ranked against Premier League rivals Newcastle United and crisis club Everton, plus Yorkshire Championship clubs like Sheffield United and Huddersfield Town

But Sheffield United had the fourth-best score in the second tier despite currently being under a transfer embargo, whilst Huddersfield Town, who are up for sale, ranked seventh.

Fair Game, a group campaigning for better governance on football, has produced its first sustainability index, which judges the country's top 44 clubs on financial solvency, good governance, fan engagement and equality standards, and has produced league tables of the results.

It says this will measure "the health of our national game."

“For the first time we have a measure that shows which clubs are well run," said its CEO Niall Couper.

By its reckoning, Liverpool are the most sustainable club in the Premier League, followed by Southampton and Arsenal.

Leeds were found to be slightly above average when it came to financial sustainability, but below it for governance and fan engagement, and well below on equality standards.

Overall they sit 17th, one above Newcastle United.

Leeds’ ownership is in a period of transition with San Francisco 49ers Enterprises, the commercial wing of the NFL club, owning 44 per cent with the option to become majority shareholders by next January.

Their financial sustainability was rated as 26.5 out of 40. Arsenal (37), then Southampton (35) had the two best figures. Bournemouth (9.4) and Nottingham Forest (1), the bottom two in the overall table, were the only clubs to score less than 16.

Only Southampton (1) and Manchester United (0.8) scored worse than Leeds' 1.5 on equality.

That is scored on the ration of women on the board – Leeds have none – and the recruitment ratio of women and Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates to leadership roles, with both weighted equally.

Everton, widely criticised this week as one of if not the worst-run club in the Premier League, ranks sixth in the analysis.

Only Norwich City, Burnley and Swansea City, in that order, outperformed Sheffield United in the Championship.

Along with Sunderland, the Blades scored joint-best for financial sustainability despite currently being banned from registering new players until they repay money owed to rival clubs. They were slightly below average on the other three counts.

Rotherham United were 13th and Hull City 15th.

Middlesbrough were the only club to score zero for financial sustainability, and did the same for equality.

Future indexes are planned to include all divisions down to the sixth tier, as well as the top two in women's football.

The group says in future it hopes to hand over running of the index to the new independent regulator it is lobbying for and which the Government is working towards introducing.

You can ready the study in full here.