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Conference round-up
Sunday's major Conference stories from the Non-League Paper:
The Nationwide Conference will ask clubs who have shown an interest in joining a Conference 2 division to pay a £1,000 application fee, and then develop their plans to provide the FA with more details on ground grading and sponsorship, for example. The FA this week blocked the plans for implementation next season, and the Ryman-Dr. Martens league plan, involving the re-arrangement of the leagues' respective borders, was not even discussed by the FA's National League Systems Committee. The next meeting is in March.
Income into the Nationwide Conference is set to hit £1 million this season, a threefold increase over three years. The figure is reached through estimates for play-off, sponsorship and television revenue. In the play-offs, the gate money is split 25% to the home side, 25% to the away side and 50% to the Conference pool.
At Thursday's meeting in Derby of the Conference club chairmen, it was unanimously agreed that players should be banned from the England National Game XI as they will miss club matches. The chairmen feel that they have not been notified of dates properly, meaning that Hereford United's Michael Rose misses his side's trip to Margate when he travels to Belgium with England on February 11th. England are also set to play Holland in March, which could rob some clubs of crucial players in the run-up to the play-offs. However, Conference chief executive John Moules said: "The Conference fully supports the England team in out-of-season fixtures", such as the Four Nations Semi-Professional Tournament set to be hosted by Wales in May.