Unfair Relegation?

[Suffolk Blue]

There was never a chance that the appeal would succeed and especially this late in the day. Nevertheless the precedent has now been set. At some point the EFL will.take its pound of flesh.

[Jim]

Grimsby Town say they won`t be challenging their relegation from league 2.

Is this fact? I can't see any reference to it on the internet.

[Suffolk Blue]

Grimsby Town say they won`t be challenging their relegation from league 2.

Is this fact? I can't see any reference to it on the internet.

See Ollie Bayliss on Twitter Jim

[TABBAP]

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[Suffolk Blue]

Just to put a full stop on this, I notice that the NL vote of no confidence in its Board was heavily defeated a few days ago with only 7 teams voting for the motion. Nothing surprising therefore and as far as promotions and relegations are concerned I think that's the end of the matter - for now.

In reality the NL have done - well nothing - either to bring their members together or try to plan for any future disruption. They are as always hoping these issues will go away whilst looking to the FA for protection. The EFL it has to be said never wanted the aggro and never felt the issue was important enough even to discuss in public.

So really the situation has not changed administratively since the Bury and Macc debacles. In that instance you will recall that the Leagues ultimately united around the universal application of PPG to solve curtailment of a season at "elite" levels only for the NL to abandon this in the following season.

Interestingly not a single team actually went bust at elite level during 20/21 despite have little or no income and being starved of resources. To some extent this might indicate that clubs have been forced to use their funds more wisely though it probably also indicates how many have had to go further into debt to survive even with their season curtailed. It'll be interesting to see what the underlying effects of all of this will be on some clubs in the future both at NL and EFL level.

[xerxes]

the Leagues ultimately united around the universal application of PPG to solve curtailment of a season at "elite" levels only for the NL to abandon this in the following season.

Not sure what you mean by the last part? (i.e. the NL abandoning it the following season). Did they make a statement at some point that they would no longer use PPG for any future curtailment?

[Suffolk Blue]

the Leagues ultimately united around the universal application of PPG to solve curtailment of a season at "elite" levels only for the NL to abandon this in the following season.

Not sure what you mean by the last part? (i.e. the NL abandoning it the following season). Did they make a statement at some point that they would no longer use PPG for any future curtailment?

"Abandon" is probably the wrong word. Perhaps "Re-interpret" might be more politically correct.

The key thing is that at the end of the 2019/20 season, PPG was adopted to determine the outcome of all Leagues from the Premiership to the NL (defined by the FA as "Elite" football) based mainly on the FA rushing in to prevent the Premiership from curtailing and voiding their season and thereby creating a massive rift with the EFL. As a result of this the FA, Premiership, EFL and NL (controlled by the FA) all signed up to a principle (which the EFL actually wrote into its rules and regs) that in those circumstances where a season was curtailed it should be settled by (unweighted PPG) to preserve promotion and relegation which was seen as a key component of the football pyramid.

So when the NL in January this year curtailed its NLN/NLS seasons, it should according to this principle engineered a solution that maintained promotion and relegation from/to the NL from its feeder leagues. What it did was null and void the NLN/NLS and preserve for itself the right of promotion from the NL to the EFL. I'm not even sure the NL had even updated its procedures prior to this. So re-interpretation definitely took place.

As has been said before, this kind of re-interpretation can only happen really if the "senior" leagues agree, which they must have at the time. So these appeals by Grimsby and Southend were always going to fail whether you consider them fair or not.

[Bingo]

Ppg was never going to be used after so few games were played teams in nat north had only played between 11 and 18 games

Doesn't really matter now tho does it

[April1972]

Interestingly not a single team actually went bust at elite level during 20/21 despite have little or no income and being starved of resources. To some extent this might indicate that clubs have been forced to use their funds more wisely though it probably also indicates how many have had to go further into debt to survive even with their season curtailed. It'll be interesting to see what the underlying effects of all of this will be on some clubs in the future both at NL and EFL level.

The reason that no team has gone bust is that everyone’s main creditor HMRC have deferred payments. If you look at who issues Winding Up petitions and who pushes the button 9 times out of 10 it will be HMRC. So quite literally the can has been kicked down the line and debts are accruing.
This will come to roost at some stage and we will unfortunately see some clubs on the edge again.

[Suffolk Blue]

The reason that no team has gone bust is that everyone’s main creditor HMRC have deferred payments. If you look at who issues Winding Up petitions and who pushes the button 9 times out of 10 it will be HMRC. So quite literally the can has been kicked down the line and debts are accruing.
This will come to roost at some stage and we will unfortunately see some clubs on the edge again.

Thats a great point. The fall often does come a while after the decline. We haven't seen the consequences of the last two seasons as some people initially might have anticipated we would But this doesn't mean that it wont happen. And Bingo is also correct, we've dodged this bullet anyway. So what? However with regard to the point regarding ppg and when it can reasonably be applied that is in my mind not that relevant. In defining a group of clubs as "elite" the Football authorities were strongly implying that as an elite sport you should not null and void your season. You finish it or curtail it with a ppg resolution. What happened in the NL actually demonstrated that the NLN/NLS are not "elite" at all. If therefore the bulk of NL clubs can be considered as not "elite" then they could easily be subject to future discrimination by the EFL. It will come back to bite them at some point.

Because nobody is prepared to articulate a set of regulations on these issues then it means simply that the next crisis is likely to involve the same process of rule manipulation or reinterpretation. We've had 3 seasons of crisis in the EFL now starting with Bury/Bolton followed by a pandemic and severe financial pain. You'd be naive to think next season was going to feature a return to normality.

[Fartvs Antiqvvs]

On the other hand, how did Morecambe manage promotion today to EFL 1, with a club that's year after year been on the bones of its Lancashire proverbial?

Bloody well done, I say.

[Suffolk Blue]

Morecambe fully deserved their promotion after the season they've put together. Lets just say that God was on their side today as Newport really should've won that game. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody does an "Evatt" on Derek Adams and I cant even begin to fathom how they are going to take on the likes of Ipswich, Sunderland or Sheffield Wednesday next season. Their budget will double but so probably will their wage bill. But it will be memorable.

[mickmike wilson]

What Monies do the FL dish out to each L1 club for the season?

Nat League was 85k wasn’t it?
League 2 is 1 Million isn’t it?

So guessing L1 will be in the 3 to 5 Mil range, Anyone know?

[Suffolk Blue]

What Monies do the FL dish out to each L1 club for the season?

Nat League was 85k wasn’t it?
League 2 is 1 Million isn’t it?

So guessing L1 will be in the 3 to 5 Mil range, Anyone know?

I' m not sure its that much Mike, but I'm sure some statto out there will correct me. If you are simply talking about money received from the EFL, then each club will have received an amount as an annual grant directly from the EFL plus a solidarity payment received via agreement with the Premier League. For reference in 2018/2019 I believe the League 2 payments were £472k+ £430k or £902k. For League 1 they were £677k and £645k or £1.32m. A differential of about 46%. In the same period however Deloittes concluded that the average L2 salary was approx. 3 times the national average whilst the average L1 wage was 5 times the average. So on that basis L1 salaries are about 66% higher than L1 salaries.

This doesn't include matchday revenues (or bail out grants in place thereof), sponsorship, revenues from Ifollow etc. But neither does it factor in admin costs, debt servicing and taxes either. So the idea that promotion to L1 for Morecambe will land them a little gold mine is almost certainly false. For a small club L1 is probably financially more difficult than L2. Unless you try and spend your way into the division and thats when you end up like Southend. Or Swindon who are reportedly crippled with debt. Obviously Accy show that it can be done but they are the exception not the rule.