CHANGES ARE AFOOT IN SOUTH WEST STEPS

A BLUEPRINT for a radical reorganisation of the Pyramid in the south west has been drawn up, in a bid to reduce travelling time and create more local derbies, while cutting the backlog of games over the winter months.

The existing Step 6 Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Premier will be split into East and West divisions under the new proposals for the 2019-20 season.

The league’s current two Step 7 divisions will cease to exist. In their place will be three new leagues, each containing 16 teams rather than 18 as in the current Peninsula One East and West divisions.

The Peninsula League will no longer control any Step 7 competitions. Instead, the new Step 7 league covering Cornwall will be run by the Cornwall FA, one for west Devon by that country’s FA and the third league, covering the rest of Devon, will come under the existing Devon & Exeter league.

There will be space for 12 new teams at Step 7 level.

After several months of talks, all of the parties involved agreed to the new structure at a meeting at the Devon FA headquarters in late March. The blueprint must now be approved at the next meeting of the FA’s National Leagues Committee on April 10. All being well, clubs will be notified about the shake-up in early June.

The titles of the Step 7 leagues have yet to be decided. If the blueprint goes ahead, would-be member clubs will have under December 31 this year to apply.

A statement from the FA said: “It is pleasing to report that all parties wish to go ahead with the structure as from the 2019/20 season.”