Lower leagues will wonder what’s the point? Dreams have been dashed by the FA.. all that hard graft for nothing
WITH the country in the grip of a pandemic, it’s important to keep everything beyond our health in perspective.
But I cannot ignore the Football Association’s decision to void all results from the 2019-20 season from steps three to seven on their pyramid – below National League level – because it could cause massive damage to the game’s grass roots.
I believe it is rushed, out of step with the elite professional game... and could drive good people out of football for good.
Whatever the pragmatic reasons behind the FA’s decision, they have sent out a dreadful message to every player, coach, supporter and volunteer below National League level – are you as important or valued as everyone else?
They put out a statement saying there was a “consensus” the season should be ended now and all results voided. Really? Who reached this consensus? Who was consulted?
Lots of people connected with the 91 leagues affected will be wondering how we reached this decision.
By making it now, and not in line with the leagues above them, the FA could kill the dreams of thousands of people at a stroke by telling them eight months of hard graft was for nothing – expunged from the record books.
The captain of one club who are certainties for promotion rang me and said: “What’s the point? I might as well hang up my boots.” These are the emotions we are dealing with.
Treating the feeder leagues like this could make good people quit the game. I understand this crisis may go on for weeks and months longer, and it may not be possible to finish the season.
But Vauxhall Motors and Jersey Bulls had already won promotion from their respective divisions. Mathematically, they were up. And now the FA have told them it was all for nothing. Clubs like Truro City, who have to travel hundreds of miles from deepest Cornwall every week in the Southern Premier League, are devastated that all those long-distance road trips were a waste of time.
South Shields, Worthing, and 1874 Northwich (supporters, right), all top of their leagues, will be feeling angry and let down. I said in my column earlier this month that we MUST finish the Premier League season if it is humanly possible. But now this has been decided, do we really need to expunge records completely when more than three-quarters of the season has been played? Surely that is enough to award at least the title, and therefore one promotion, in each division.
As one captain suggested: If every club has not played the same number of games, and there is no prospect of completing the season, why not finalise league tables based on pointsper-game? At least everyone is then being judged by the same yardstick.
Some clubs have played more games, others were already facing fixture backlogs because of the wettest winter on record and waterlogged pitches, so why not a points-per-game solution?
In fairness, although many clubs only pay their squad expenses, some will have players on contracts, and with no income from gate money or bar takings, they will have no means to pay wages. Money talks loudest in football, and that was probably a key factor behind pulling the plug now.
Clubs, already under huge financial pressure as a result of the coronavirus shutdown, will be wondering how they can survive eight months of endeavour being expunged.
My non-league club Stockport Town, of the North West Counties
League, could still go up mathematically. There are nine games to go, and six of them are against clubs in the lower end of the division, so who knows what could have happened?
But there will be tears and anger at a host of clubs whose dreams have been dashed. Yes, there will also be some relief among teams who are spared relegation.
But, for me, it’s a premature call. It’s desperately hard on the groundstaff, the line painters, the bar stewards, the programme sellers, the turnstile operators... all the people who keep their local clubs going for the love of their community and their love of football.
Question: have the FA rushed an important decision? There is a lack of clarity, a lack of logic – if one league feeds another, why should steps three to seven on English football’s ladder follow a different set of rules than the Premier League, EFL and National League?
Is there any right of appeal for clubs under the NLS (National League System) rules? This decision begs more questions than answers.
We are not talking about clubs who are driven by profit. In non-league circles, below the National League where most clubs are full-time, they are just happy to break even and survive.
Some of them are communityowned – in other words, run by fans who simply love the game. I don’t see where they are going to get any enjoyment out of a season being expunged.
Think of the players who get up at 5am to do day jobs or shifts in factories, travel to away games only for expenses, get home after midnight and have to be up again at 5am the following morning.
Games played behind closed doors will do nothing for teams at their level. With no fans, generating no money, it will only increase the gap between grass roots, “expenses-only” players and those on wage contracts.
Calling off the season now also deprives clubs in the FA Vase a oncein-a-lifetime chance to play at Wembley in the final, and denies youngsters at grass-roots clubs the chance to play county cup finals on league grounds.
And I can’t help noticing that leagues higher up the semi-professional ladder seem to be aligning themselves with the elite divisions. Are they, perhaps, hoping for a handout to bail them out?
South Shields chairman Geoff Thompson called the FA decision “appalling”. One player rang me to say that football will never be the same for him again because “It’s not worth all the hard work, if you’re just going to get your heart ripped out”.
Is anyone at the FA listening? Or are they prepared to stand by and watch good people quit football forever and drift out of the game?
Football is insignificant in the age of a pandemic, but try telling 91 leagues of non-league players and supporters – and thousands of kids up and down the country – that the FA’s announcement on Thursday doesn’t matter.