Iain Dowie insists he does not need to leave Crystal Palace for Leeds to fulfil his managerial dreams.

The Eagles boss was again connected with Elland Road when Leeds failed to appoint Kevin Blackwell as Eddie Gray's successor as expected this week.

But Dowie is on the brink of taking Palace into the Barclaycard Premiership, and has been promised funds for new signings by chairman Simon Jordan if the club win Saturday's play-off final against West Ham.

Dowie said: "Speculation will be speculation. I'm not going to add to that. As far as I'm aware I've had no approaches or anything like that. It's disrespectful to a club of Palace's size to have that.

"There's no question I'm an ambitious manager and the chairman knows that, but so is he. He's invested very heavily.

"He's spent £32 million of his own money and this club is not going bankrupt because of his investment. He's a Palace fan.

"I'm not going to be disrespectful and talk about other clubs. I would imagine this club is capable of fulfilling my ambitions.

"The chairman has said if we go up there will be sizeable funds to invest."

Dowie's work in transforming Palace from relegation fodder into promotion candidates has not gone unnoticed, and neither has the length of his contract, which has just over a year left to run.

The fact that his wife and children still live in Bolton because of his time in charge of Oldham has also worried Eagles fans, who fear he could be tempted with a return north.

But Dowie said: "My family has not been an issue. I was working the terms of a three-year contract at Oldham which never materialised and I had moved my kids up there. It wasn't fair to move them again.

"The length of the contract is not an issue for me. If I was only working for six months here it wouldn't change the way I work. I don't believe in short-termism."

Palace have had six different managers in Jordan's four-year reign at Selhurst Park, and the mobile phone tycoon has a reputation for driving them to distraction by getting too involved with team affairs.

But Dowie insists their relationship is solid and that Jordan would be more concerned if his manager was not attracting the interest of other clubs.

He said: "There's a folklore about Simon but I've never found him like that. He's never interfered in my gameplan.

"I've found him straight and honest. He'd be more worried if there was no speculation about his manager. Then there would be something wrong."