By Andrew Kerslake
BATH CITY director of football Adie Britton has hit out at clubs who overstretch themselves financially – declaring the Conference “not viable”.
Salisbury City and Hereford from last year's top-flight have both been expelled from the Football Conference completely, while Macclesfield Town teetered on the brink for weeks before owner Amar Alkadhi agreed to pay last season's wages and keep funding the club for 2014-15.
Britton, who was manager when the Twerton Park outfit spent two years in the top division before suffering relegation back to their current Vanarama Conference South status in 2012, said: “Personally I don't think football at the Conference level is viable. It's in a very, very, bad state.
“There are sides that traditionally have been Non-League and semi-pro for a long time.
“Because the league structure is far more fluid, with two going up from the Conference, it's a dream that people can now chase compared to when there was re-election and voting into the Football League, and you perhaps had to wait 20 years.
“These clubs now push the boat out and become full-time. The extra finance that requires over time has then often killed those sides; it has not been sustainable. As a consequence, a lot of clubs are now in really difficult positions.
“Chairmen and managers overspend because they only think about the short-term gain, they think about themselves, and they don't think about their clubs.
“If you leave a club and in the next two or three years that side is in financial difficulties, then everything you have achieved, you can scrub out, because anyone can do that.
“I can think of a long list of managers and chairmen who have done that over the last ten years.
“The league management are in a difficult position. They want strong clubs in there. Equally they want clubs in there at a standard that they can compete with each other. So it's a very difficult balance for them to strike.
“There are probably plenty of clubs who don't meet the given criteria but if the league management was tougher, they might end up without a competitive league.”
Speaking to Bath City Internet Radio, Britton was also critical of the FA and its desire to protect the lower reaches of the game.
“We have a pyramid system that we should cherish and is superior to anything else in the world,” he added.
“We have five to six divisions of professional football and it is something we should protect. We have the money to protect it, but the cake is not split evenly.
“The icing on that cake is then Greg Dyke, talking about a Premier League B league, produces a plan which would be the ultimate kick in the teeth for football at his level.
“I am sorry but that idea that has just not been thought out. There are plenty of people out there that could have advised him on how we can get grass-roots football right and how it can feed into the Football League.”
