‘LOANS’ DECISION MUST GO HIGHER
KING’S LYNN Town chairman Stephen Cleeve believes it will take a change of thinking at ministerial level to turn the loans into grants.
The Linnets chief understands why some clubs will want to play on but says the harsh reality is the season can’t complete if clubs don’t want to continue with the financial support on offer in the form of loans.
Although he wonders if a reduced grant would be appealing to some clubs.
He told The NLP: “I’m happy to play on as long as we can get some finance in – a minimum of £50,000 per club then I think it is doable. They’d only be asking for £1.5m a month in the National League.
“I think it’s fanciful to start working it out based on attendances. The big clubs clearly want to continue, they don’t want the season to be banged on the head. If you’re Torquay United, why would you? And I understand that perspective.
“But equally for the big clubs to continue, they need the smaller clubs who haven’t got such deep pockets to be able to take part.
“This isn’t through any fault of their own. They’ve been told there would be grants and it would be reviewed if the Covid situation was still amongst us – that hasn’t happened.
“But where does that leave everyone with no teams taking part? So money talks. It comes down to that. Without the money, unless players want to play for free, and I can’t see that happening, then it can’t continue.”
Cleeve believes the bill to the government of clubs mothballing and furloughing staff would come at a greater cost and thinks the bigger picture is being missed.
“Let’s just say this was a limited company and I said it would cost £17m to do this or £11m to do that – which would you rather do? You’d pay the £11m,” he said.
“What the DCMS say is, ‘We’ve got a budget and our budget is more important than the greater good’. That’s where it is wrong and where it is wrong all over. They just worry about their own little budgets. It needs someone at ministerial level to look at it.
“It’s interesting that the two levels – North and South – are being dealt with in a different way and now they are being allowed to separate. Which does make sense to me in some respect as long as they’re not going to ask us to play with no income.
“Otherwise I’m essentially being asked by the National League board of directors to bet my club. And you’d be asking other chairmen to bet their club.
“So they can’t expect clubs to do that, nor should they want them to do that. The right thing to say is for all clubs to take part there needs to be some income. You can’t survive without income.”