Crazy Money

By richhend13/5/2019 13:19Mon May 13 13:19:52 2019

Views: 2856

I see that there was a lot of online abuse directed at Salford City after their promotion victory on Saturday along the lines of “They’re a plastic club”, They’ll go the same way as Rushden and Diamond”.

Interestingly and perhaps frighteningly in the Daily Mirror’s Monday report of the Salford match there was the following quote from Gary Neville:-

He added: “I know a lot of clubs who have money and are not successful. The aim was always to be as aggressive as possible to get into the Football League. It was a simple economic argument from day one.

“If you want to get out of the National League, a budget of £700,000 or £800,000 won’t get you out, and it will cost you two or three times as much to get out the longer you are down there.

“It’s cheaper to spend more and go up. It’s simple economics and we have the ability to do that. The dream would be to reach League One and see what we do from there.”

Considering the above, I was wondering if we are now seeing the atrophy of the National League, as it seems the only sides that will get promoted to the EFL are the rejuvenated ex-Football League sides. Considering that Salford beat another biggish money club Fylde in the promotion play-off final will we ever see one of the traditional non-league clubs promoted to the EFL?

The EFL sides demoted to the National League already enjoy a financial advantage by way of the hefty parachute payments they receive that provide a competitive advantage. Additionally, my perception is that the traditional EFL sides demoted to the Conference National seem to find it easier to attract new money into the club.

Effectively, the Conference National is three separate completions – one for the ex-EFL clubs with the financial clout to secure promotion, one for the ambitious traditional non-league clubs with biggish but insufficient funds to mount a realistic promotion challenge and lastly one for the traditional non-league clubs that are too good for the Conference North/South but will never stand a chance of promotion to the EFL, even if they wanted it.
I would be interested to hear what others think.