a way of the big prem teams ruining lower level football for their own ends....complete farce if this happens

I'd be interested to see how many of these "300 stakeholders" are involved in lower/non-league, and how many are directors and sponsors in the upper tiers. I suspect its almost entirely the latter.

If this is about the national side then it's a non starter. How will players benefit from playing at this level. Going back 2-3 years would Danny Welbeck, for example, have progressed more from playing for Man United reserves away to Wrexham more than he did going on loan to Sunderland? Of course not.

Unless you are going to put the best B sides in the Championship where is the benefit?

Havign said that I have long said that National football below League One should be abolished. Not a popular opinion probably but think financially it males sense.

Turn League Two in to League Two North and League Two South by merging Conference and then regionalise further below there into Conference North, South and Midlands.

It will never happen, but more derbies, bigger gates and less travelling expenses would avoid the fate of Kettering, Rushden etc in recent seasons.

Clubs would still overspend regardless of travel expenses etc

morph wrote:

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So where would they play? considering we needed ground grading for the conference and they are aim to play above us. The big clubs are not going to open their stadiums up for a reserve side so they would have to rent a ground like ours and above?

and also how much are they going to charge? if our level is circa £15 then being a higher league they are going to have to charge more and are people willing to pay £18 - £20 to watch reserve football?

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 I think the big clubs would open their stadiums, combined with using their training grounds depending on expected attendance. What chance a conference team surviving at that level?

Found this link to a petition if anyone is interested

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-football-association-say-no-to-b-teams?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_facebook_mobile&recruiter=92223608

 

Can anyone make this a hyperlink please

And don't the top Spanish B teams, your Barca's, Real Madrids etc, play in the second tier? Not the fourth? Tannoyman's Danny Welbeck example is a good one - how would he have benefitted playing in the fourth tier?

I'd like to see the club, and indeed every non-league/lower league club issue a statement on their website, as Plymouth Argyle have done:

www.pafc.co.uk/news/article/statement-fa-commission-1545173.aspx

It's not enough for the Premier League to ruin the League Cup and FA Cup, they've got to send the lower leagues down the pan as well!

I'd suggest the number of top level coaches, not a lack of first team opportunities, is to blame for the lack of talent:

England - 1,161 UEFA 'A' Licence coaches
Spain - 12,720
Germany - 5,500

I signed the petition against the new proposal, here is the latest update I have received.

 

Just a quick email to say thank you to all 34,000 of you for signing our petition and to let you know the latest on the campaign.

On Friday, the Football League announced that there was "no appetite" amongst FL clubs for League 3 or Strategic Loan Partnerships. That is excellent news, as the FA can't really implement these proposals without the support of the Football League

Worryingly however, it was also confirmed that there will be further discussion into the Football League's alternative proposals to allow 'B' teams into the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. We spent 2 full days asking our campaign support what they thought of the proposals, and it was a quite clear "no".

As such, the campaign focus is now shifting to counter these alternative proposals.

We'd love you to stay involved with the campaign. AL3 is run by fans, for fans. There are loads of ways of getting involved and staying in touch with what we're doing.

You can find us on twitter (www.twitter.com/againstleague3), facebook (www.facebook.com/againstleague3) or visit our website (www.againstleague3.co.uk)

We're also trying to direct fans to our forum (www.al3.freeforums.net) so that fans can talk together and collectively organise what to do next.

Thanks for signing our petition, and supporting the campaign.