The EFL’s updates regulations have been a new minefield for MK Dons to navigate since their promotion

Neil Hart believes financial restrictions on clubs have gone too far with the approval of the Salary Cost Management Protocol alterations brought in for this season.

Previously, teams have been allowed to spend 60 per cent of club spending on wages, but that has been reduced to 50 per cent this season, with manager and coaches’ wages also included in that figure.

All owner equity injections are now counted within the calculation at 50 per cent (or 65 per cent for newly relegated Championship clubs), meaning only half of an owner's cash injection can go toward boosting wage budgets while the rest must support infrastructure or other operations.

Dons have been backed heavily by their Kuwaiti ownership group, led by Fahad Al Ghanim, in the last two years, helping them to secure automatic promotion last season from League Two.

Chief executive Hart confirmed Dons are operating within the new regulations set by the EFL, but admitted he feels they are fairly restrictive and time consuming, and somewhat punishing for owners who are eager to invest in their teams.

“Football needs to be careful around over-regulating,” he said. “Chief execs and senior execs shouldn’t be spending all their time navigating rules and regs rather than running the clubs. We need to find a balance. In my role this summer, I felt like we lost that balance a bit.

“We all understand why there needs to be increased regulation, it’s to drive clubs into being more sustainable so clubs don’t just rely on owners investing, but there has to be a middle ground.

“You have owners who don’t want to invest from the outset, you also have owners who do want to invest and there has to be a framework that allows that to happen. That’s what makes the EFL pyramid so special.

“Clubs like Wrexham, Birmingham City, clubs which have invested heavily over the years and gone on journeys. And that’s no different to what we’re trying here.”

He continued: “The independent football regulators have been in to meet with us and that went really well. We provided all the information to them and they’re totally satisfied with where we’re at.

“Then there have been increased regulations coming in from the EFL, which has been arduous over the summer.

“We’ve had a couple of challenges which we’ve come through, which were little nuances to the rules in League One which we’ve dealt with.

“There will always be a requirement for investment into any business or a club to try and get it going, and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”