Football Association chairman Greg Clarke has admitted he only spoke to Bury owner Steve Dale after the club had been expelled from the English Football League.
Clarke gave evidence to the Digital Culture Media and Sport committee in London on Monday, as the cross-party group of MPs investigated how Bury's demise had happened and what could be done to stop other clubs suffering the same fate.
Bury's EFL membership was withdrawn in August after Dale was unable to provide financial sustainability guarantees, and a bid to have the club reinstated in League Two for the start of next season was rejected by the 71 members of the EFL at a clubs' meeting on September 26.
A winding-up petition was adjourned on October 16, with the club now facing the threat of liquidation at a hearing on October 30.
MPs criticised the EFL and the FA over their handling of the Bury situation, and questioned Clarke on when he had first had direct contact with Dale.
"He wrote to me making a series of observations about how he had been treated," Clarke said about Dale. "I wrote to him offering him a meeting to explore those issues, and that was the last I heard."
Asked by the committee when that was, Clarke replied: "I would say three or four weeks ago."
Asked why he had not spoken to the club over the telephone, as Clarke said he had in his role as Football League chairman between 2010 and 2016, he said: "I didn't because when I used to get on the blower I was responsible for enforcing Football League rules.
"I do not interfere in the league enforcing their rules."