National League suspends North and South divisions

TORQUAY United’s game against Notts County tomorrow goes ahead despite the National League suspending all of the games in its South and North divisions.

Matches have been suspended for two weeks with immediate effect following a league board meeting yesterday after 12 NL North clubs had called for the season to be halted. At the moment, the top NL division, led by Torquay united, continues.

The future of the National League competitions was thrown into doubt when the government, who had provided a £10million rescue package in October, said any future funding would have to be in the form of loans rather than grants.

A NL statement read: “Following the review of the feedback from clubs in connection to the recent clubs’ meeting, a board meeting this morning decided to halt the participation in the South and North divisions for a two-week period, effective immediately. As a result, tomorrow’s games are formally postponed.”

At a meeting on Wednesday, all 66 clubs across the three divisions were given the option of taking an individual loan from the government, taking a centralised loan from the National League, or cancelling the season.

A large number of clubs, including half of the NL North, chose the third option and called for the league to be scrapped before this weekend, when they would have incurred more costs and, without any coronavirus testing, put themselves at risk.

In a joint statement, the clubs said: “While the integrity of the National League is important, we do not value this above the safety and wellbeing of our families, staff, volunteers or that of our heroic workers who are tackling this pandemic on the frontline.

“Furthermore, we have now been asked to consider loans against our clubs and we are quite simply not prepared to trade whilst insolvent.

“Therefore, we are calling for the immediate suspension of the league competition to allow the NL, FA and the DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport] time to find a solution that is acceptable to all.

“This suspension will allow us the time to lobby our respective MPs and carry out our own financial risk assessments against avoiding a ‘null and void’ scenario.

“An inability to secure acceptable funding to cover Covid-19 testing and the loss of fans will continue to render us insolvent and we are not prepared to prolong this beyond January

29, 2021.

“We are duty bound as mere custodians of our clubs and will do everything we can to ensure we do not place any avoidable further financial burden now or in the future upon our community assets.

“Quite simply, 66 clubs would not have willingly participated in any footballing competition which initiated playing contracts, without assurances.”

The Government’s winter survival package is worth up to £300million in total and is comprised mainly of loans but also some grants.

Concord Rangers and Slough Town were two clubs in the National League South who had said they would not play their weekend games.

Concord chairman Anthony Smith claimed the NL had made threats of expulsion if they did not fulfil their trip to Eastbourne.