Over half of National League North clubs have put out a statement wishing an immediate stoppage to the footballing season after discovering their funding from the government would come in loans as opposed to grants.
Meanwhile, National League North table-toppers Gloucester City released a club statement on Wednesday evening insisting they wanted to continue playing whilst lobbying the government to find a solution.
Alongside this, co-chairman Alex Petheram has provided a more detailed update for Gloucester City supporters.
The club were set to be playing AFC Fylde in a top of the table clash, but the game was called off due to some Covid-19 positive tests in the Fylde camp.
After the news that the funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and sport (DCMS) would not be coming as grants, National League representatives then initially pitched three options to its 66 member clubs.
Option one was that clubs would be able to take on long term low-interest loans, their second option is that the League will take on the loan and give clubs grants, with future league central payments to clubs then reduced and the final option was to suspend the season.
While Chester and Eastbourne Borough were mostly in favour of option two, both clubs still have some queries and worries as to what it actually means.
And as the day has gone by some clubs have been releasing further updates as to what they will be doing for this weekend’s fixtures, including Concord Rangers, Slough Town & Havant & Waterlooville.
The latter have confirmed they will be entering a ’10 day self-isolation break’ and will not be playing their next three fixtures.
Their upcoming opponents which would’ve been Concord Rangers are refusing to play as well until further clarification is given surrounding testing.
Further down the non-league pyramid, step 3-6 have until Friday night to vote on how to decide the remainder of the season with four options presented to them.
Heading towards the opposite end of the spectrum in the Premier League where money has been given to League one and two, but not beyond that.
Presenter of the Non-League Show on BBC, Ollie Bayliss believes that the top-flight clubs should be interested in what is going on at non-league level as it could have serious implications for the future of football at all levels
“Sadly, I do wonder if PL clubs are all that fussed about the lower league game. I think they should be, in terms of what these clubs do, getting younger people involved in football is underestimated.
“How many four-year-olds start their football by playing for Manchester United youth team? They don’t, they play for their village team.
“Pretty much all these non-league teams have women’s teams, walking football, under 5s 6s 7s, and if you take those senior teams away and you don’t fund those grass roots football teams then people don’t learn to play football.”
The Non-League Paper editor Dave Watters also spoke very strongly of the need for elite clubs to do more for non league football and if they don’t it cost them severely down the line.
“The Premier League can’t exist in it’s own little bubble, it can, but over the long term it would do so much damage to football in this country.
“They call it grass roots because its the grass roots that nurtures football, where do they think people like Les Ferdinand or Stuart Pearce come from? If you go through the Premier League even today that have come out of non-league and been discovered or there’s been players that have had a second chance in non-league.”
As of earlier today the National League are still expecting clubs fulfil their fixtures, but multiple teams have already made the decision that they do not want to play.
Initially this began as a few but it’s now beginning to increase and the representatives of the National League have confirmed they will be a meeting tomorrow to discuss the way forward.
