Athletic Article: League One and Two Seasons to be abandoned next week

Indian Dan

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Just listened to Lee Power on TalkSport. Pretty much confirming what we all thought the problems are facing lower league clubs.

He said without fans attending we couldn’t start any new season. Going to need to rely more on our Academy but at the same time he’s going to have to make cuts right across the board just to survive.

Bleak
 

Luke Imp

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But I would expect the championship clubs to put league 2 clubs under pressure as the league 2 chairman came to the wrong conclusion.

It’s hypocritical and self-interest in voting to stop relegation.

On what basis can you state you’re allowed promotion out of a division but not relegation? You either have both or nothing at all.

I can imagine the eyes of the Norwich etc chairman lit up at that - right boys, the EFL won’t allow relegation out of their competition through a vote, let’s to the same.

The issue with Stevenage and relegation is far from over in my eyes.
I couldn't quite understand the Norwich CEO's point on no relegation if the Championship can't complete their season and the PL can.

What happens in the Championship has nothing to do with him. If the PL finish their season and Norwich get relegated, it's none of their business how those in the league below are promoted because they'll have proven themselves to be not good enough in *their* league. Whether someone else deserves promotion from the league below has no impact on Norwich.

It'd never work. Firstly, we're trying to move forward with football, not back decades.

What's the difference between going to Portsmouth or Barrow? Or Gillingham or Carlisle? Instead of going south, you're just doing the same distance across the country.

I'm not totally convinced attendances would be up. Local games are generally better supported because they're one-off games. All you'd get is people prioritising what local games to do to, which is what people do now with games. It'd make little difference.

And that's before you get talking about the part time sides that are in the NL and going from a fully professional league to a hybrid.
 

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Just listened to Lee Power on TalkSport. Pretty much confirming what we all thought the problems are facing lower league clubs.

He said without fans attending we couldn’t start any new season. Going to need to rely more on our Academy but at the same time he’s going to have to make cuts right across the board just to survive.

Bleak
Lee Power is hardly the person you'd want in this situation.
 

Vanni

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Said on the NL forum I could pretty much name 3 of the 4 who did vote for Stevenage to go down. Oldham, Macc and you guys definitely did. I'm less sure but going off what Neville has said over the last month or so, Salford may well have voted for it too.

Fully expect them to go down as the EFL will surely have concerns from the Championship clubs to deal with. Either way, there's no logic behind keeping them in the league at all given that horrendous losing run they were on. We were the last team they played and they couldn't be arsed, they'd just downed tools.

I've never been the ground but I do love the town. I think it'd offer much more to the FL than Stevenage currently does as an away day.

Hmm, dunno about that. An educated guess is that 3 of those 4 clubs are the ones that most want ppg to determine the league table as it would see them go up, and logic dictates that they've got to be seen as being consistent. So I would think it's far more likely to be Crewe, Swindon and Plymouth, with FGR being the others of course.

Else it wouldn't make sense for a club to be wanting to go up on ppg but then say no to ppg for the other end of the table.

As for Macc, I'm pretty sure they voted for no relegation due to them being in fear of more points deductions heading their way.
 
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shoddycollins

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Assume both divisions are as they are for 18-19

Southern Division

Plymouth, Torquay, Exeter, Yeovil, Newport, Swindon, Eastleigh, Dover, Ebbsfleet, Woking, Aldershot, Maidenhead, Crawley, Bromley, Boreham Wood, Leyton Orient, Sutton, Dagenham and Redbridge, Barnet, Stevenage, Forest Green Rovers, Cheltenham, Cambridge, Colchester

Northern Division

Carlisle, Hartlepool, Barrow, Morecambe, Harrogate, Bradford, Halifax, Fylde, Chorley, Oldham, Salford, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Stockport, Wrexham, Macclesfield, Crewe, Port Vale, Chesterfield, Mansfield, Notts County, Walsall, Solihull Moors, Northampton

Ludicrous idea. It won't save on travelling, if anything, it's even worse for Midlands clubs and those in areas from Wrexham to Mansfield too.

The constant "More derbies, more fans" argument is elementary as well as people need to pick and choose games. Their incomes aren't going to magically increase. And how boring will it be playing the same sides every year? I'm looking forward to a season without playing Port Vale next year after spending every season bar 3 since 2006 in the same division. And that's in the current system. In a system harder to get promoted from, it'd be an annual trip...
What a shitshow that southern division looks. Can see why the likes of Plymouth are against it, being in a division at least half full off bankrolled Sunday League teams from shithole commuter towns.
 

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What a shitshow that southern division looks. Can see why the likes of Plymouth are against it, being in a division at least half full off bankrolled Sunday League teams from shithole commuter towns.

I can confirm that it is absolutely shite! We certainly don't want regionalisation even though it would in theory lift us back into the "league".

Travelling ridiculous distances up north to watch us lose every other week is what being a Torquay fan is all about.
 

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Who’s to say they’ll ask you to supply evidence you’ve finances to fund next season (whenever that is, which presumably you couldn’t.

Obviously i hope that isn’t the case, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Yeah that's likely to happen. But by no means would it just be us who are lacking funds after all this. Dunno how lenient the league will be in circumstances like these, not that we deserve any favours from them anyway.

In the short term we'll make it to the end of the season using the furlough so we shouldn't get any more charges. We won't be punished for other previous late payments according to the disciplinary panel (contrary to what this Nixon chap is saying). So we will at least avoid finishing bottom, in case relegation ends up being implemented. Then we can release all the players and coaches and put the club into some kind of hibernation. Don't know whether we will be able to get up and running again after all that though.
 

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Just heard the Swindon chairman on Talksport basically saying they will go bust unless there is financial help from the PFA and other forms.
 

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Just heard the Swindon chairman on Talksport basically saying they will go bust unless there is financial help from the PFA and other forms.

Interesting. Indian dan seems to have hypothesised the doom of many other clubs but not his own.

Obviously we’ll all go the same way if this carries on and there’s no form of rescue package
 

valefan16

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Can't be a good idea when it'll only be for two promotion spots.

Basically non-leaguing the league. Boring.

Pretty much the issue with it, I’d not be against the National League Prem becoming League 3 as part of the EFL as to be fair these days it’s all pretty much full time and some big clubs down there, so a 92 becoming a 116 isn’t unreasonable but would likely make the L2N and L2S less competitively if regionalised you’d expect the weaker teams in each section to be miles off the better ones, essentially if say Chorley and Swindon were compared the gulf would be fairly wide!
 

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Swindon going bust without PFA help? Sod em. If they can't survive and haven't been financially responsible then let them go. Can't go around bailing out half the EFL cause owners are responsible.

Anyway, with our trust continually putting in the annual 700k, we are probably profiting whilst our staff are on furlough
 
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Devon_Lad

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What a shitshow that southern division looks. Can see why the likes of Plymouth are against it, being in a division at least half full off bankrolled Sunday League teams from shithole commuter towns.
Us, Torquay, Swindon, Arg*le, Newport and Aldershot are all decent fixtures and a lot of the others are London piss ups which are always fun. The idea is shit and I oppose it but the fixture list would be ideal and much better than Northern lot. Better than shite trips to places Like Mansfield, Hartlepool & Salford ffs.
 

AdamStag

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Us, Torquay, Swindon, Arg*le, Newport and Aldershot are all decent fixtures and a lot of the others are London piss ups which are always fun. The idea is shit and I oppose it but the fixture list would be ideal and much better than Northern lot. Better than shite trips to places Like Mansfield, Hartlepool & Salford ffs.

Depends what you like from an away trip.

I’d rather an away day at shithole like Hartlepool than have a fixture down south and potentially meet you :lol:
 
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T.A

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Oldham still arent in a great place either, and I dont mean the bottom half of the league...
 

Devon_Lad

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Depends what you like from an away trip.

I’d rather an away day at shithole like Hartlepool than have a fixture down south and potentially meet you :lol:
I'm banned for another 7 months so you'll be alright up till December if we play ya. No more trips to Mansfield for me, once a dive always a dive.
 
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Indian Dan

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Swindon going bust without PFA help? Sod em. If they can't survive and haven't been financially responsible then let them go. Can't go around bailing out half the EFL cause owners are responsible.

Anyway, with our trust continually putting in the annual 700k, we are probably profiting whilst our staff are on furlough
It was absolutely nothing to do with the PFA. Did you actually listen to the programme? He was asking the question what the PFA were going to do with the substantial reserves they had and that by maybe helping clubs they would benefit their members i.e the players. He was saying that every single club in the lower leagues could not start any new season if fans were still not allowed. He said absolutely nothing about going bust.

I just love the way Exeter fans seem to think that just because they are fan owned they are immune from all this. If Devon Lad thinks his club can run on £700k a year and no fan income he actually is as dumb as I thought.
 

Indian Dan

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Interesting. Indian dan seems to have hypothesised the doom of many other clubs but not his own.

Obviously we’ll all go the same way if this carries on and there’s no form of rescue package
Just where have I done that?
 

Indian Dan

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Just heard the Swindon chairman on Talksport basically saying they will go bust unless there is financial help from the PFA and other forms.
That’s not true. He actually said we couldn’t start any new season without fans and that that applied to every other club down here. If fans are still not allowed for a year there will be no football for a year in leagues 1 and 2. Clubs cannot survive without fan income outside the PL and maybe a few in the Champ.

Whether clubs can hibernate, mothball, call it what you will, and actually be able to start up again, I have no idea. Of course, even if there are a handful of clubs that can play on regardless, they’ll have nobody to play against.
 

TrinidadsNumberOne

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What really concerns me is that there are a ton of lower league fans discussing making signings on all the sites. Do they not realise this Summer will be very, very different?

Signings will be on the backburner for months. The PFA are a useless organisation who act only in the self-interest and greed of Gordon Taylor. The sooner he's removed from the office and replaced by a recently retired player in touch with the modern game (Not sure I'd be a fan of Kitson, but I'm sure there'd be plenty of better alternatives) the better.

Players will have to accept a cut in wages and that is inevitable. Maybe as high as 50%. This isn't conning them for their labour, but in the years of wider austerity throughout all of society, their wages have been increasing non-stop. Even at the National League levels. So it's time they played their part to protect the game they play if they want it to have a long term future. It would be a very, very bad look if players at lower league levels especially decided to strike or staunchly oppose any cut in wages. I get that they have contracts and they expect them to be honoured, but you can't predict a pandemic!

I know some players have been on furlough and some clubs players were only getting 80% of their usual wages, but all of us on furlough have technically been on a pay cut too. I'm back to work today for the first time in two months. In that time I've lost around £750. It doesn't seem much, but that'd cover a lot of bills. Because I've lost that much, and I'll have bills to pay first, I can't possibly pay for a season ticket for a 20-21 season that, in the worst case scenario, may not even start! There'll be thousands of other people in that situation too.

Instead of wankers like MacAnthony demanding a finish to the season on the pitch because he's spunked millions other clubs don't have on an ego trip, why don't those in football think about the fans who are also suffering financially as well? I know TV is King and I know some teams are banrolled, but our revenue is also very important at the lower levels of the game. If players can see we're going through hardship, then they should be aware that, if the fans want their morale boosting when we come out of this crisis, they can play a huge role in making our game more sustainable and still prominent within wider society for many years to come.

Collectively, all those in football must take the short term pain, ask the difficult question and come to a consensus with answers that, of course, will please next to no one, but we need a game to come back to, we need a nationalised league structure to come back to and we don't want to see our clubs jeopardised because an 8 club L1/L2 journeyman doesn't want his £150,000 per year plus bonuses salary cutting. We'll see what the salary cap proposals are later and see if they're viable. But once this seasons' final placings are resolved, let's not blow hot air or make ludicrous threats of legal action about who goes up or who goes down despite there being a democratic vote and ratification by the governing body, let's work together to get a solution which protects the long-term future of the game.
 

redjed

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Re regional leagues, even in the south of the country we have had over night stays this season, I.e. Plymouth, Cambridge and Exeter. Also when this North \South idea was first mooted, someone in the club said that staying overnight when travelling up north was a minor expense.
 

TrinidadsNumberOne

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Regionalisation would be tinkering for tinkerings sake and it'd bring far less benefits to the game than it does now. It's an attempt to divide lower league fans because some people will actually be in favour of that idea. And I respect their reasons. But I'm confident they'd hate it a few years down the line.

Want radical change? Merge the PL with the EFL, scrap parachute payments, scrap EPPP or better yet, stop all clubs from getting into debt like the Germans do, bring back standing and embrace a stronger fan culture than allowing the status quo consumer culture to fester within the game. None of this will happen or be explored of course, but that's radical change in my eyes!

At least German teams spend what they can afford. The vast sums of revenue German teams have got over the years has allowed them to build stadia, designed for fans and not corporates and middle classes, which make a lot of our own look absolutely basic and laughable. Our top teams spunk such revenue on Dominic Solanke, Jordon Ibe and Tyrone Mings and wonder why they 1. Can't compete and 2. Go heavily into debt.

But obviously, the Premier League and EFL know their TV Rights deals, quality of players and bubble in general is fuelled by excessive debt, so watch them resist the urge to put spending reforms and salary caps into the Premier League and Championship (the root causes of most ills in British football), and target Leagues 1 and 2 to make out they're doing something. And salary caps are needed in our leagues, but they'll also be needed worldwide too. The English football model is about to burst, it's been shown up for the artificial construct of wealth that it is, but you just know the PL and Championship will do everything they can to preserve the game as it is, strengthen their positions in the higher echelons of the game and get into even more debt than seek the reforms they need to really improve the health of the wider English game.
 

Indian Dan

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Reducing travelling expenses through regionalisation is just pissing in the wind.

The problem is getting the bloated PL clubs weaned off TV’s teat. Even reducing, or getting rid of, the parachute payments would save every club in L1/2. But who is ever going to vote for that. But just look at the raft of ex-PL struggling in the Championship and now riddled with debt - Hull, Boro, Reading, Wigan, Stoke, QPR.
 

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Fuck regionalisation.

We wanted to play on because we can but we respected the wishes of the other clubs in the league who financially can't afford to do so. We got a practical outcome, let's just get on with it and then next season get back to normality.

The R rate in London is now about 0.3 and falling so once the more remote northern regions catch up in a few months I see no reason why fans can't return in August/September.
 

Indian Dan

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Swindon going bust without PFA help? Sod em. If they can't survive and haven't been financially responsible then let them go. Can't go around bailing out half the EFL cause owners are responsible.

Anyway, with our trust continually putting in the annual 700k, we are probably profiting whilst our staff are on furlough
Seems not all of your fans have your rose tinted view

‘I'm amazed more fans don't demand more transparency from The Trust. As you correctly pointed out, the usual excuse for their complete lack of meaningful information given out to supporters is for "confidentiality" reasons. It's a complete cop-out, but it's highly effective. The Trust's view is that they have been elected by the fans (well, about 5% of them in reality), so that gives them the inalienable right to rule as kings and control all flows of information at the club. It's a jaw-droppingly arrogant position, especially as we fans own the club. Mark my words, the first we'll hear about City running out of money will be a press release from The Trust after we've gone bankrupt. "Due to the impact of Covid 19 on the finances of Exeter City Football Club, we are sorry to announce..."
 

Boletus Edulis

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Re regional leagues, even in the south of the country we have had over night stays this season, I.e. Plymouth, Cambridge and Exeter. Also when this North \South idea was first mooted, someone in the club said that staying overnight when travelling up north was a minor expense.
Our owner, who is against regionalisation, says that it in the scheme of things the travel is fairly small in terms of budget.
 

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It was absolutely nothing to do with the PFA. Did you actually listen to the programme? He was asking the question what the PFA were going to do with the substantial reserves they had and that by maybe helping clubs they would benefit their members i.e the players. He was saying that every single club in the lower leagues could not start any new season if fans were still not allowed. He said absolutely nothing about going bust.

I just love the way Exeter fans seem to think that just because they are fan owned they are immune from all this. If Devon Lad thinks his club can run on £700k a year and no fan income he actually is as dumb as I thought.

Are out goings without staff are circa 300-400k pa, if our staff are furlough and we still getting 700k pa revenue in. It's not difficult maths. As long as games aren't being played then we are profiting.

Danny just a bit upset that Swinny going bust shortly after getting an undeserved promotion that cannot even be celebrated? Yikes. Contractual agreement and wage increases once that's in writing too. Uh-oh! You need to look close to home before giving it large on here about other times going bust. You could be gone before Maccy based on the interview
 

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Seems not all of your fans have your rose tinted view

‘I'm amazed more fans don't demand more transparency from The Trust. As you correctly pointed out, the usual excuse for their complete lack of meaningful information given out to supporters is for "confidentiality" reasons. It's a complete cop-out, but it's highly effective. The Trust's view is that they have been elected by the fans (well, about 5% of them in reality), so that gives them the inalienable right to rule as kings and control all flows of information at the club. It's a jaw-droppingly arrogant position, especially as we fans own the club. Mark my words, the first we'll hear about City running out of money will be a press release from The Trust after we've gone bankrupt. "Due to the impact of Covid 19 on the finances of Exeter City Football Club, we are sorry to announce..."

Just C+Ping from an anti trust poster is hardly anything evidential to back your case up. Opinions vary. Holy sh1t.

Facts don't vary though and that's Swinny going bust
 

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