WE'VE GOT LITTLE TO BARGAIN WITH

The issue for the National League is not so different to the one faced by the EFL.

- Gregor ROBERTSON

Its leaders have spent the last few years pleading with the Premier League for a bigger slice of its TV revenue. The "New Deal for Football," they call it.

The problem? Leverage. More specifically a dearth of it. What have the EFL got to offer the Premier League? Tailoring the Carabao Cup schedule a little more to their liking? Letting more of their kids use the EFL as a finishing school?

At least the EFL has a backstop on the horizon, in the shape of the forthcoming Independent Football Regulator (IFR), which is set to have the power to impose a financial settlement if one can't be agreed on.

But the National League? What leverage have they got in their quest for a third promotion place to the EFL?

When the new 3UP Campaign swung into action last week, it was hard to shake the feeling that the National League is shouting into the wind. A few days later, the EFL board met. They refused to even commit to a vote on the proposal. To the surprise of no-one.

That's the thing with modern football-and maybe it's always been this way-every decision is rooted in self-interest. Greed. Looking out for No 1. No broader acknowledgment that English football is a collective. That each team and league needs the ones above and below for competition to thrive. That the fluidity of the pyramid is precisely the thing that makes it the envy of every other country on the planet.

As I wrote in a column in these pages in August, two years ago the EFL was willing to offer an extra promotion spot to the National League as part of the "New Deal for Football". Clearly it was seen as one small bargaining chip that might ultimately earn the EFL more cash one day.