BEWARE! THERE'S A TSUNAMI COMING

Doswell: Step 2 deserve a say

- Matt Badcock

PAUL DOSWELL says Non-League football must brace itself for a tsunami of pain – and the Havant & Waterlooville boss hit out at the lack of equal voting rights for Step 2 clubs when it comes to concluding the season.

The experienced manager, who spent ten successful years at Sutton United before joining the Hawks last summer and is a successful businessman in his own right, is also urging authorities to get innovative through the coronavirus crisis that has left football on its knees.

Doswell says he worries for players who won’t have budgeted for severe cuts to wages in the future and is calling for football to have a major reset.

“It’s going to be like a tsunami coming in Non-League football – and League One and League Two,” Doswell told The NLP. “I can see it coming. Thousands of players are going to be released from League One, League Two and National League clubs. They are going to be desperate to get a club.

“My honest opinion is clubs will hardly be able to pay any wages. The days of Non-League players at the top level earning £700, £800, £900-a-week, they’re finished. The days of League One and Two players earning £2,000 and £1,500-a-week, finished. You’re talking a minimum of half the amount. I really hope players are budgeting for that.

“It has left us with zero income. At Havant we’ve got a chairman who runs a pub refurbishment company and has had to walk away from eight contracts. The other ten are on hold.

He owns a brilliant restaurant a mile from the ground, that’s closed, and the football club is closed. So, even a club as well run as Havant – and it is very well run – has got no income.