OUR CLUBS DESERVE TO HAVE THEIR SAY

WITH NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAIRMAN BRIAN BARWICK

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WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS?

The fates of clubs like Notts County and Barrow are at the forefront of the National League plans

NLP: WHY DOES THE NATIONAL LEAGUE FEEL IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO LET CLUBS DECIDE WITH A VOTE?

BB: There is no silver bullet on this situation. We are in the middle of something nobody has experienced before, nobody can say this is how we did it last time because there isn’t a last time, certainly not in the last 200 years. We’re in something that’s extreme in terms of not just the sporting life of the country but the complete social life of the country.

Anything we do has to be seen in the context of the bigger picture – and the bigger picture is the health of the country. Any decision we’re making is put alongside that. I don’t think anyone involved in this sequence thinks we’re going to come up with a perfect solution, we’re just trying to come up with the best solution we can given the unprecedented circumstances.

One of the ways we felt was appropriate to go along was to engage our clubs in some of the key decisions. We believe it’s the right way to go about it to get our 68 clubs affected by this pandemic involved in the process. We felt it was the right way to take an element of the decisions to them.

HOW MUCH DOES THE CONNECTION THE LEAGUE HAVE WITH THE EFL COMPLICATE THINGS?

It is a complication in one respect but, equally, it’s an ambition for our clubs in our senior league to make that step forward into the EFL. When you’re interlocking with another league, you have to be conscious of where they are in any process they’re doing and not only sit near or alongside it but be aware of it.