The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
League One is now a complete farce
The EFL has finally smashed Through the Looking Glass.
We are now in a world where clubs can effectively vote for who they want to get promoted and for who they want to face in the play-offs. You can even vote for yourself.
Clubs can also vote to stop other clubs playing, but carry on playing themselves.
Clubs can now vote to claim glory on the back of the lottery of fixture schedules without properly earning it and those same clubs can vote to relegate teams who haven’t been given a fair chance of survival.
We have travelled beyond absurd, through fantasy and sham, and arrived at a complete farce. It’s taken an awful long time as well such has been the crawl of EFL chairman Rick Parry and co from inertia to hopeless dithering.
Laughably the press release after their latest crunch board meeting spoke of ‘the need for decisive action’ before they passed the buck onto the clubs, again. Laughably they asked League One clubs - the division causing the EFL most problems ironically as it’s been so brilliantly competitive - for creative solutions and then disregarded the only one they received.
So here we are. There are still a couple of votes to go of course there are - but it’s now long odds on that third tier clubs will decide to end the season now and award final placings on a points-pergame basis. Could you ever imagine a scenario where, at the start of the season, clubs would accept some playing more home games than others? Of course not, but we are in this la-la land of make believe now.
Coventry City will be crowned champions and few will begrudge a set of fans who have been tortured by owner incompetence in recent season their moment in the sun, even if the title win will be accompanied by a bloody great asterisk. But Rotherham, who failed to beat lowly sides MK Dons and Rochdale in their last two matches, can avoid the stresses and strains of the final nine games, pick their ball up, and run home and hide from six matches against teams in the top half that would have tested their primitive tactics.
That is most frustrating for the likes of Fleetwood, Oxford, Portsmouth and Posh who would have fancied overhauling ‘the Millers’, but will likely be frustrated by the whims and wishes of those clubs whose seasons have drifted into mediocrity.
It’s a double whammy of course for my club as a quirk in fixture scheduling means Posh won’t even get to contest the play-offs. They will be passed by Wycombe partly because the Chairboys game at leaders Coventry was postponed as the Sky Blues were still in the FA Cup.
Wycombe will now be awarded 1.73 points for that game and jump from eighth to third. The fact Coventry will receive 1.91 points means 3.64 points will be awarded for a game that if played would have had a maximum of three points. All fine, nothing to see here according to EFL brains and weak clubs who can’t see beyond their own noses.
I doubt there is a regular League One watcher outside of the passionate folk of Buckinghamshire who would have predicted Wycombe finishing in the top six never mind in third place. Their race had been run. They were out of puff and yet next week they could be two wins from a place in the Championship.
It’s not just a promotion issue either. Of all the League One clubs, AFC Wimbledon should recognse the folly of an early finish as they stormed to safety in the final weeks of last season. Their policy, now they are threatened by a similar Tranmere surge, is to pull the plug for ‘safety reasons’.
Remarkably Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony has been painted as a villain in some quarters (South Yorkshire mainly) for daring to speak out and challenge decisions that demand scrutiny.
Well don’t listen to the feigned disgust of those who have been working dirtily in the shadows, out of embarrassment probably, to turn League One into a lottery.
Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony is active on Twitter - too active some would say - but at least he’s been at the forefront of the fight for the future of all lower division clubs. He wears his heart on his sleeve and I reckon history will judge him kindly when the dust settles on the biggest football crisis of all time. I’d rather have a chairman who engages with fans as well as chairmen, EFL officials and any other interested parties. I’m not sure history will judge Accrington Stanley owner Andy Holt (pictured) as well. Holt kept his personal involvement in the entire process to a mimimum which explains the ill-informed and downright snidey comments he likes to make on Twitter.
If next week’s vote goes against Posh it will be a sixth season in succession the club have failed to reach the League One play-offs.
It’s not often that Fleetwood manager Joey Barton will speak the most sense, but his declaration that Rotherham have ‘won the lottery’ is true given luck has played a huge part in the Millers’ likely promotion success.
Rotherham manager Paul Warne wins the prize for uttering the most selfish words though. He said recently: “My team are in an automatic position and I want to see that go through, not only for the town, but for all my staff and players.
“We’re talking about jobs and everything here. The importance of promotion this season is greater than in any other season I have ever known for every club.”
Does he mean jobs in Rotherham are more valuable than those in Sunderland, Portsmouth or Peterborough?
Wycombe manager Gareth Ainsworth’s recent comment about ‘being denied the chance of automatic promotion’ by ending the season was surely just a terrific joke.