On Friday, the excellent Price of Football podcast released an eagerly awaited interview with the National League Chief Executive Mark Ives. Most of you will know I don’t have much time in this respect for the interviewee and of course did send in a question on the National League Cup.
Have a listen to the pod, it’s well worth your time as a National League club fan or a non-league football follower, after all he controls the very highest point of the game part we follow.
Needless to say I pulled apart a lot of his answers, Kevin Day had split the pod into three sections based on the questions they received, although there were some spin offs within that, so strap in, grab a subscription to read it and see if you agree or disagree. Some of it I agreed with and plenty I didn’t, let me know your thoughts.
The content below was originally paywalled.
The DAZN TV and streaming deal is finally up and running on Smart TV Apps, about two months after it was expected to be ready. Now granted it was signed late in the day, the National League renowned for slow communication and no different here.
I’ve spoken to quite a few people within the game and not being in the presence of the biggest broadcasters in the UK (SKY or TNT for sport) hasn’t and won’t push the game forwards. A seven year deal is long in anyone’s eyes on this, jury is most definitely out in this respect.
The National League board itself is way too top heavy with club interest. 13 individuals of which only three are independent. Each owner will want to look after their own, representation should be minimal to take that opportunity away, look at the mess the PL are in with legal challenges because the CEO’s have too much voice, just a recipe for disaster all the way through.
So to the National League Cup. It’s a shame they couldn’t ask individual questions as mine was something like this ‘What will be the measure of success for the National League Cup and what happens if that measure isn’t reached?’ The second question was ‘What’s your plan to increase attendances in the said competition as they don’t seem to be of interest to National League club supporters?’
Attendances last week didn’t top 500, well those who actually disclosed their figure and when Altrincham are letting everyone in for free, that tells you all you need to know as well.
Now some of his wording was incorrect. There is a following but it’s for the Premier League itself, not it’s academy sides for which less than 1% actually go on and make an appearance in England’s top division.
Clubs have picked up injuries to rule out players from games they should be playing in to win promotion for their clubs, not for the development of players who are hoarded at top clubs and then end up with NL clubs picking up the pieces when so many get released.
The question that should be asked though is they think of the National League as being 72 clubs, yet only the top division were asked to compete in it and the North and South clubs get money for not competing in it! Make it make sense please because that just reeks of the furore with dividing up the pandemic money, an independent board would either have challenged that or not let it happen this time around, seems lessons have not been learnt at all.
The point on the regulator was interesting. I do agree with Mark clubs shouldn’t be picking up the tab for any legal challenges that occur along the way, in my opinion the FA should pick up the tab for their inability to regulate the game they are there for, their constant bending over is why this independent person is needed.
FA Cup Replays. This is where he really shows his short-sightedness and some PL type thinking. There is absolutely no reason why replays can’t happen for rounds One and Two minimum. They had already been abolished from the Fifth Round; the Third and Fourth Rounds takes place in a month where there are no European games.
The only reason you can see for not having them then is it gets in the way of the PL winter break, tough! These two rounds have no impact on PL clubs, none at all.
What he fails to grasp completely here is the non-league pyramid under his National League top division. It’s not about chucking 15 or 20K in the pot for 1st and 2nd round losers, that’s just token payment. They will make more from a replay and forget the stupid stats of how many don’t go to the extra game. That’s the point in total, less choice for TV rewards those who’ve taken a club to an extra game, but it’s even more than that.
It’s the memories created for all involved, that might be nostalgic I know but it should still be considered. More importantly and for those beyond Step 1 in non-league it’s the exposure these clubs get for a few weeks whereas the other 50 odd weeks of the year they’re confined to the backwaters.
Just ask the likes of Cray Valley PM, Horsham and others in years past, teams you’ve never taken notice of until now because they took a League side to that replay and the nation got to see. It’s blinkered thinking at times.
Football doesn’t work where every club benefits Mark, it’s never been like that and never will be, it’s all earnt by every single club in whichever way you make it work, if it worked like that no one gets relegated and everyone gets success, cups, and titles.
The final points on 3 up, 3 down and artificial pitches I agree with, see it’s not all bad. Has jumping at taking PL cash when they’re in dispute with the EFL damaged some reputation? I don’t know to be honest, that remains to be seen. Mark is completely right in saying it’s an hourglass figure with the bottleneck in that division compared to promotion and relegation from the top to the bottom.
I also agree there should be a three year leeway on 3G pitches when a club is promoted. As Mark rightly said you can play international matches on them and league clubs have to do the same for FA Cup matches, it does need some grown up thinking when you see what Sutton Utd have had to scale back on their community work and likewise no doubt for Bromley.
So, there we go, it’s quite lengthy I know but would really love to know what you think, the pod is worth a listen, it’s just under an hour in total and it might make my points more understandable.
