Vase refusal will have long term effects

ALONG with 50 other Step 7 clubs, Cottesmore Amateurs FC were notified by The FA this week that they would not be accepted into the FA Vase for the forthcoming season.

Application was made by the club in January and the criteria indicated that ‘a club participating at Step 7 of the FA National League System in season 2019-20 shall only be permitted to apply for entry if it has applied for promotion to Step 6 for season 2020-21. However, acceptance into the competition will be subject to such club receiving promotion to Step 6 for season 2020-21.

Cottesmore Amateurs, having beaten two Step 6 clubs to reach the first round of the competition last season (which would have ensured entry this season in any event) and having applied for promotion to Step 6, consider that they and many other clubs have been unfairly discriminated against by The FA.

At the point when the FA declared Steps 3-7 to be null and void in March, Cottesmore were in second place in the Leicestershire Senior League and, on a pointsper-game basis, would have been promoted to Step 6.

The FA have finished the season in a completely unfair manner to clubs at lower levels of the pyramid and have added to this situation by unfair treatment for Vase applications by Step 7 clubs.

Surely the FA could have used their discretion to allow clubs meeting the original criteria to enter the Vase for next season. Instead the FA made the disingenuous statement that entry to the competition was denied because ‘clubs had not been promoted’ – when the decision not to allow promotion was taken by the FA itself.

As a further result of this decision, exclusion from the FA Vase means that those clubs affected cannot apply for grant monies from competition sponsors such as Buildbase who provided valuable funding to grassroots clubs last season.

MICHAEL TOLOND

Cottesmore AFC