Football League proposes new five-league, 100-club system

mossypne

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Apparently the 8 new teams would be conference teams with no relegations from league 2 that year. There would also need to be 7 relegations from the Championship with 3 from league 1 coming up to make 20 teams in the championship?
 

Harrier94

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Sky Sports has said potentially B teams....the fa were clearly told that fans and clubs at this level didn't want that why try to implement it again?
 

Tom_CUFC

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There are so many things wrong with English football, but the structure of the divisions is certainly not one of them. They're insistence on pissing around with things that don't need to be changed and avoiding the obvious areas that need to be tackled is absolutely infuriating.

Of course though, it's all driven by money.
 

EnglishRed

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It makes most sense to put the teams with the top 8 average attendances into the new league :2thumb:
 

Harrier94

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Sky Sports has said potentially B teams....the fa were clearly told that fans and clubs at this level didn't want that why try to implement it again?

Okay they seem to have deleted that tweet and not mentioned B teams now.
 

yellow

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Yeh, there's 8 proper clubs in this division worthy of FL status.

Get re-election back in the game, too.
 

Sparrow

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Imagine the spending that will happen in the season where eight clubs get promoted.
 

Forza Imps

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This is the possible way to do it without any B teams:

Would involve the bottom 12 in League Two being relegated though, bottom 8 in L1.

5divleague.png
 

Master D

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Been waiting for this, it's the ideal time to use the natural order. Easy peasy.
 

Chris FGR

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Hopefully league 2 will be regionalised.
 

Blue Lion

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So what this really means for us mid table teams is that unless we finish in the top 8, we are relegated to the sixth division. Good for the eight teams that go up, although it would create a buffer for bigger teams, completely distancing them from possibly dropping into the National League (a la Tranmere).

Reading the statement, the main question I have is from this part:
"We have to make sure none of our clubs are in a financially worse position," he added.
"Our clubs shouldn't be the only one to shoulder the burden. We won't be looking for clubs to take a financial haircut to support this.

Where does that extra money come from? Clubs will lose income because they have 6 games less to play. It will be even more unbalanced against non league teams, surely.
 

Silver Stone

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Yeh, there's 8 proper clubs in this division worthy of FL status.

Get re-election back in the game, too.
Who would they be, out of interest?
 

Jemfy

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None of the b-team bullshit please.

Otherwise - it could work. It could then be accompanied by the Conference moving to a 2-division top tier structure with 20 teams in each and the formation of a new Midland League in the level below to sort out some of this crap geography that we are currently falling prey to (but are far from the only ones that do). Maybe make all of those divisions 20 teams as well.

Running through the numbers, this would be an abolition of the current step 2 in my head. It wouldn't be overly popular due to the recent re-shuffle, but let's see how it works out:

Prem - 20 teams (same)
Football League - 4 divisions of 20 teams, 80 total up from 72 (+8 from below)
Step 1 - Conference - 2 divisions of 20 = 40 total from 24, with 8 going up that means +24 from below
Step 2 - Conference regional - abolished effectively - 24 teams going "up" means 24 teams going "down"*
Step 3 - Northern, Southern Isthmian - +24 from above=96 going in to 4 divisions of 20 (80 total) with a new Midland League - 16 go "down"*
Step 4 - Currently 48 in Isthmian +44 Southern +44 Northern = 136 total -> +16 from above = 152. 8*20=160 -> requires 8 extra promotions from below - ideally with a bit of a northern bias

A bit convoluted but it's the best opportunity to do what is required and make a true pyramid out of the system and minimise the sideways moves or the impact of them. That said it looks like re-organising in to this structure in any other season wouldn't require any extra promotions from below, it's

*teams going "down" are just teams that fail to get pushed up a level of non-league through the restructuring. Down a tier overall I guess due to the creation of an extra level above.
 

iesty wfc

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So what this really means for us mid table teams is that unless we finish in the top 8, we are relegated to the sixth division. Good for the eight teams that go up, although it would create a buffer for bigger teams, completely distancing them from possibly dropping into the National League (a la Tranmere).

Reading the statement, the main question I have is from this part:
"We have to make sure none of our clubs are in a financially worse position," he added.
"Our clubs shouldn't be the only one to shoulder the burden. We won't be looking for clubs to take a financial haircut to support this.

Where does that extra money come from? Clubs will lose income because they have 6 games less to play. It will be even more unbalanced against non league teams, surely.

They are arguing that midweek games draw smaller crowds so by having less need for midweek games due to less fixtures the incentive will be there for bigger crowds on a weekend
 

Silver Stone

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I think if anything, it would open the door to evening up the promotion between the FL and non-league.
 

Greenacres

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There is one big disadvantage as far as I can see it and, surprise surprise, it comes down to finanace. In the National League we have 23 home games a season, which would probably drop to 19 for those teams absorbed into the new league structure. How will clubs make up for the loss in revenue from having fewer home games? Will there be a revised League Cup, maybe with a league structure like the Europa League, in the earlier rounds to give teams a few extra games? Will there be a staggered transition over several seasons or will there be a grand carve up at the end of one season?
 

Harrier94

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There is one big disadvantage as far as I can see it and, surprise surprise, it comes down to finanace. In the National League we have 23 home games a season, which would probably drop to 19 for those teams absorbed into the new league structure. How will clubs make up for the loss in revenue from having fewer home games?

Clubs will probably have to increase ticket prices meaning a loss of new potential fans
 

Ryan

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If this did happen then there would need to be 3 teams getting promoted from the 6th tier to league 3. Then again this should be happening from the national league to league 2 now but it's not.
 

Blue Lion

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If it gets the go ahead then we could see teams throwing huge amounts of money at making the top 8 the season before this League 3 idea comes into place. I can see some clubs going out of business if they fail to make the cut.
 

Blue Lion

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There is one big disadvantage as far as I can see it and, surprise surprise, it comes down to finanace. In the National League we have 23 home games a season, which would probably drop to 19 for those teams absorbed into the new league structure. How will clubs make up for the loss in revenue from having fewer home games? Will there be a revised League Cup, maybe with a league structure like the Europa League, in the earlier rounds to give teams a few extra games? Will there be a staggered transition over several seasons or will there be a grand carve up at the end of one season?
The FA statement says that they're adding a group stage to the JPT to make up for the fixture shortage. But if they do that then what does all this change? The whole idea was to reduce the number of fixtures.
 

Jemfy

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So what this really means for us mid table teams is that unless we finish in the top 8, we are relegated to the sixth division. Good for the eight teams that go up, although it would create a buffer for bigger teams, completely distancing them from possibly dropping into the National League (a la Tranmere).

Reading the statement, the main question I have is from this part:
"We have to make sure none of our clubs are in a financially worse position," he added.
"Our clubs shouldn't be the only one to shoulder the burden. We won't be looking for clubs to take a financial haircut to support this.

Where does that extra money come from? Clubs will lose income because they have 6 games less to play. It will be even more unbalanced against non league teams, surely.

Theres a lot in here, and this is where the real talking points are/should be.

1. How do conference sides feel about being pushed down a tier?
IMO it won't make a blind bit of difference, partially because this is a great opportunity to go in to a 3 up 3 down through the homoginisation of all the football league divisions to match the premier league structure. Conference clubs won't see their prestige diminished, sponsorship won't change as a result etc. While it's theoretically another level to get to the top, with 3 up 3 down from all of those divisions promotion from each is theoretically easier (3/20 is less than 3/24), and on top of that, how many conference clubs really aim to push right to the top in anything but the wettest of dreams of the most optimistic supporters?

2. Finances - here's the big one, and you hit the nail on the head with the fact that teams are losing 8 games - 4 home games a season. While they may be midweek games effectively that are lost these are still a valuable source of income for clubs. Season ticket costs will have to go down or else ticket prices up to compensate. The obvious solution would be for the FL to lobby for more PL money to pay the clubs, though the most obvious answer IMO is for clubs to accept that income might be a bit lower and just pay players less. A 20 team league with mostly weekend games would make part time players/teams in the football league a much more viable option...

All this said so long as clubs vote for it, and set the date far enough in advance there is no real excuse for failing to plan for the changes in income. I see ticket prices increasing, but I hope it doesn't happen. Best case if price increase it pushes floating fans towards non-league sides.

On the attendance side it's important to note that the FL will deem it a success at the end of the first season as attendance averages will go up due to loss of midweek games and they'll start the mutual patting of backs. No matter what actually happens to clubs.

This will also cause some shake ups to the FA Cup of course, the League Cup and FL trophy will be changed as a result, maybe the latter can actually get billed as a vaguely important competition?...
 

Luke Imp

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We'd still find a way to miss out.
 

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