APRIL 25 could be a date for your diaries as there is a dramatic dogfight for the one automatic promotion place into the English Football League.
It sees runaway non-league leaders and York clash at Spotland Stadium on the final day of the season.
Rochdale and York are in a National League race to land spot in EFL next termCredit: Shutterstock Editorial
But this potential winner-takes-all showdown masks a glaring wrong — the EFL doesn’t give a single penny to the National League.
Can you imagine the sense of outrage from EFL clubs if the pulled the plug and decided to no longer finance them, to the tune of around £300million per season.
It would lead to accusations of bare-faced, pigs-in-the-trough greed and yet the does literally nothing to help the National League.
In football, we are all supposed to belong to one big, football family where organisations help each other.
But while the EFL gleefully takes Premier League cash, it mysteriously stops short of doing the same thing for their cousins in the National League.
Plus, the concept of three up, three down runs throughout the EFL but stops short of the National League, where only two teams are promoted, one automatically as champions.
Not exactly a level playing field, is it? In fact, in recent years the EFL has demanded even greater ‘redistribution’ — cash to you and me — from the Premier League.
To justify their stance, the EFL says it creates only a fraction of the wealth of the Premier League and therefore urgently needs a financial leg-up.
But when it comes to doling out their own funds to the National League, the same principle somehow does not apply.
Even though the EFL just got nearly £1BILLION of TV revenue from selling their broadcast rights, they still won’t pass a single penny down to the league below them.
Why? Beats me.
A relatively modest amount handed over to the National League would underline the EFL’s solidarity with their lower neighbours, as well as show a degree of consistency which is currently missing.
Another EFL justification is they claim to be financially fragile, and as such, every penny clubs receive is fully merited.
The Premier League could actually make the same argument, as there is close to £4BILLION worth of debt in Prem clubs.
But we don’t make that argument, we just continue to push funds downwards, including the fact that the Prem is the sole funder of all football, including being the ONLY funder of the National League and
The National League is almost completely professional and therefore subject to exactly the same financial pressures. They are just as much a part of their communities, yet they do not enjoy the same safety net as EFL clubs.
I would agree that relegation is a financial catastrophe for League Two teams but surely you could say the same about relegation for any club, from any league.
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There is nothing extra special about going from the EFL to the National League.
The football pyramid is supposed to function as a connected system with the biggest boys handing over to the big boys, who then hand over to the smaller boys, who then pass it on to the smallest.
Yet this sense of pyramid responsibility only goes so far, as National League clubs are left out of the equation by the EFL.
Football must be a meritocracy and it strikes me that the EFL is very keen to protect their own, less enthused about helping others.
As for the National League’s demand for three promotion and relegation places, the EFL will discuss this in March and I hope they see common sense.
What’s good for the goose is also good for the gander.
For fans of Rochdale and York, who are both well clear of the pack, this will be a nervous time as the financial rewards of a leap into the EFL are immense.
But whoever misses out on automatic promotion — and it is likely to be one of them — can blame a flawed system.
The EFL should do the decent thing. Firstly, fall in line with their own promotion and relegation rules and secondly, as the saying goes, ‘show them the money’.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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