National League To Ask For £17M

Press reports this morning suggest that the National League are to ask the FA for £17M to help clubs through the conoravirus crisis.

According to The Athletic, League CEO Michael Tattersall will take the plan to FA chiefs in order to try and protect the 68 clubs in its three divisions who are facing a perilous situation after losing their main source of income - gate receipts.

The plan has been hatched by Dulwich Hamlet chairman Ben Clasper who has briefed Tattersall, and with the League sending out financial forecast sheets to clubs this week to gauge how much money would be needed the figure stands at around the £17million mark.

Tattersall told The Athletic: "The airline industry has gone down 75%, which is very, very unfortunate for them.

"We are down 100%. We haven't got any matches. Our income is almost down to zero for the time being. But we've got a lot of employees to look after. If we're going to look after people, we need an intervention. We need to try to establish football, or at least non-League football, as one of the industries, the sectors, that the Government regards as being an acute case.

"We will take it to the FA this week.

"This is the focus of our league now. To communicate with Government and with the FA in order to make and economic case.

"What we want is that when we come back out of the coronavirus, we want football to return. The football club will return a lot of benefit to its community, but if its sacked all of its players, and hit financial distress, we won't be able to switch it back on. If we want to switch it back on we need money now to preserve it."