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Next Game: Rushall At Home In The League On Saturday 30th November At 3.00pm

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Difficult Times For National League Players

With still no certainty when National League football will start this coming season, players face difficult decisions.

James Jennings who is a left back with Wrexham is particularily concerned given his age and has drawn up a CV for the first time last week.

Interviewed for BBC Sport he speaks about what next season might bring.

"The whole landscape of football has changed and it looks as if there are going to be huge wage cuts across every level, even at the top. That is going to filter down the pyramid," said Jennings.

They are talking about salary caps in the EFL, so it is going to have a massive effect on non-league football, certainly for the next 12 months.

There are going to be around 1,400 free agents in the EFL alone this summer, so there could be a massive influx of players coming down to our level, competing for contracts.

On top of that, most National League clubs are almost certainly going to be operating with smaller squads, and offering lower wages.

I can see more younger players being involved in the game because of that - they would be more likely to be able to accept having to live on less money.

For older players such as me, it's not straightforward. While football has served me well and I still think I have got another few years in me at this level, I have a family to provide for.

Soon I will have to make serious decisions about whether to carry on playing or get another job until football resumes, then maybe get back involved at whatever level I can.

It's been something I have been thinking about for the past four or five years anyhow. I've been lucky enough to play professionally since I was 17 but I always knew that at some point I was going to have to move into a different career.

You can prepare all you like, but you could never be ready for a situation like this.

Like a lot of professional players at this level, I have been out of contract before, but it is different this time - there is the fear of the unknown about what happens next.

In normal circumstances, I would have known whether I was on Wrexham's retained list a long time ago. Players would be due back in pre-season training in a couple of weeks and, even if I was still looking for a contract, I would be in dialogue with quite a few clubs.

But none of that can happen until we find out when the new season will start. That is what makes things so uncertain for so many people.

A lot of players, including me, still don't know if we will be offered a new deal by our current clubs because the managers don't know what their budget is going to be.

If the National League made a decision and said 'we start in September', then clubs could start speaking properly to players.

Even if they said there will be no football at this level until fans can come back in January, then at least players would know and they could prepare financially.

It sounds quite dramatic but that is what I have been telling other players since football stopped - to plan for the worst, and to make sure you are going to be OK if you don't get paid for a few months."