Oxford United creditors are seeking legal advice amid claims that the club's former ground may have been sold too cheaply.

United sold the Manor Ground at Headington for £6m to Firoka (London Park), a Jersey-registered company owned by club chairman Firoz Kassam.

Firoka later sold it for £12m to the Nuffield Nursing Trust, owners of the Acland Hospital. A hospital and homes are now being built there.

Creditors, who claim to be owed more than £9m and expect to receive 4 p for every pound they are owed, have criticised the original sale to Firoka.

They say that if the price had been higher, they could have expected a better return.

One creditor, Patrick Nally, of London-based stadium building consultants Stadi Varios, said he was owed £35,000 for a package to save the club before Mr Kassam bought it.

He said he was astonished at the difference between the two sale figures.

He said: "It is two fingers to the creditors. I shall watch developments with very great interest."

But Mr Kassam said: "They are totally incorrect. I had already paid £6m for the ground without planning permission. It was a year later, when planning permission was given, that the price went up.

"It was a big risk I had taken. As a director, I did what was best for the club and I have no problems justifying my position."

Under the terms of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) in 1999, every unsecured creditor will receive a proportion of the money owed -- about 4 p in the pound -- according to David Buchler and Neil Cooper, of Kroll Buchler Phillips, the firm appointed joint supervisors of the CVA.

Mr Cooper said that creditors had asked him to explain the difference between the two sale values.