EFL clubs have pleaded with the Premier League to save English football from collapse.
Despite months of talks, the top flight is yet to agree a package of further financial help for lower league sides facing bankruptcy because of Covid-19.
And EFL clubs are warning that the end of Government furlough arrangements after October, combined with huge falls in matchday income even when fans return, will bring the crisis to a head.
The Premier League has already forwarded its usual solidarity payments but that money will not last most clubs very far into the autumn.
Phil Wallace, owner and chairman of League Two Stevenage, said: “All we’re doing is kicking the can down the road. Eventually, you run out of road.
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“Without a bailout, I don’t see what the outcome can be other than clubs going into bankruptcy.”
Even if some fans are allowed back into Stevenage’s Lamex Stadium from October, it’s likely that the maximum crowd will be 1,500 – combined to last season’s average of 3,500.
That would mean a fall in income of £30,000 to £40,0000 per home game, even before loss of secondary spend at food and drink outlets and other revenue streams was taken into account.
Simon Hallett, owner of League One Plymouth, recognises that a number of Premier League clubs are also facing significant financial challenges.
But Hallett said: “Eventually the elastic snaps and clubs run out of cash.
“At that point, if there are still no fans, it’s inevitable some will be very close to going bust.
“It’s about the preservation of the English football pyramid. I don’t want to get misty-eyed and romantic about it.
“But the great glory, I think, of English football is the football pyramid.
“You can still have the dream that you start off playing in the park with a pub team and you end up in the Football League.
“If you want to preserve that, some kind of financial help to ease us over this crisis is going to be necessary.”
Stevenage and Plymouth are fortunate that they have multimillionaire benefactors like Wallace and Hallett to support them – for now at least.
But many other clubs will be teetering on the brink of extinction unless something changes soon.
Wallace, like Hallett, accepts that lower league clubs are often guilty of financial mismanagement.
But he insists English football’s proud tradition of having 92 or more professional clubs can be preserved and a wider discussion is needed about the distribution of money across the game.
Wallace said: “Why can’t we sustain this number of clubs?
“It’s important to have a healthy pyramid, but you have to balance that and walk that line between clubs wasting money, overspending and doing all the stupid things that clubs do.
“It’s not as easy as I’m going to give you money. You have to convince me that there’s a good working model that can be adopted.
“If we change things, and redistribute in a fairer way, it’s not wasted.
“It’s a big discussion. But clubs have got to be there to have that discussion.
“Come 2021, they might not be.”
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