Derby manager Frank Lampard has angrily hit out at Leeds United for spying on his training sessions and dismissed the argument such behaviour is culturally acceptable elsewhere in world football.
Derby confirmed on Friday afternoon a Leeds employee had to be removed from the club’s training facilities by police in a surreal incident now being investigated by the Football Association.
Quizzed ahead of the Championship meeting between the two sides on Friday night, Leeds boss Marco Bielsa admitted he was responsible for sending the ‘spy’ from his camp.
"Without trying to find a justification, I have been using this kind of practice since the qualifiers for the World Cup with Argentina.
"It is not illegal, we have been doing it publicly and we talk about it in the press. For some people, it's the wrong thing to do and for other people, it's not the wrong thing to do."
Lampard had little time for Biesla’s comments in his pre-match interview, however, telling Sky Sports: “On a sportsman's level, it's bad, in my opinion. If we are going to start talking about ‘culturally I did it somewhere else and it was fine’, then that doesn't work for me.
“I don't believe that it is fine on that level. It has disrupted our build-up for this game."
Leeds eased to a 2-0 win over Derby later in the evening to move five points clear at the top of the Championship.
"People will say I am standing here making excuses before the game - I will speak about this after the game win lose or draw.”
Lampard went onto claim his training sessions have been spied upon twice by Leeds this season.
The former Chelsea midfielder also revealed the Leeds spy would have been privy to the fact that Rams forward Harry Wilson missed training through injury.
“If somebody wants to say that is not relevant and that won’t affect the game then that means that Pep Guardiola, [Mauricio] Pochettino, Jurgen Klopp and all the great managers… they are just lucky," Lampard added.
