The Next 6 Months?

The indicative voting Ollie Bsyliss has posted shows, unsurprisingly, that teams in the top half of the NLS largely want to continue the season, and teams in the bottom half largely want to call it off. Welling buck the trend, perhaps gambling there's no relegation this year.

The trend also, of course, reflects where the money is. Just as well we're not 10 pts clear at the top...

I see that our opponents on Saturday, Chelmsford, are now playing at Oxford, so our match is definitely off. Not that there was much doubt.
I spotted elsewhere it has been claimed that the National League have contacted clubs to confirm that sanctions will be put in place on clubs who refuse to play matches. No mention of what that might be, but I guess it could be the much touted £10k per match, points deduction or relegation either 1 or 2 steps.
Scary times, and still weeks to go before the votes need to be made by all clubs.

Ollie Bayliss has updated his Twitter re the timeline for his FoI request.

With the virus mutating it is going to take a modified vaccine and continuing "lockdown" to stop the spread. I can't see any spectators being allowed back until, like smallpox, coronavirus is eradicated.

Ollie Bayliss Twitter update:

Dulwich Hamlet charged  by the National League for breach of rule 8.39;  other clubs, including Bath City, logically will also face the same...

Southport have received a warning letter about this Saturday's fixture.

The letter sent to Dulwich mentions possible expulsion - by the end of this they could be looking at expelling around 20 clubs!

The sanity of the National League board is in question.  All clubs need to be allowed to opt out if their circumstances merit it.

https://www.solihullmoorsfc.co.uk/news/posts/chairmans-programme-notes-vs-barnet - "Completing the season behind closed doors and under lockdown will cost the club an additional £450k between January and June. This is the reality of the size of the financial burden being placed on us by the current circumstances."

GULP!
The only clubs who can afford to continue are the ones funded by multi-millionaires.

The National League Board has proved itself to be evil, vile pig-****, with no respect being shown by them for players, management or staff of all Clubs that they are meant to be administering. and should thus be ignored by all like-minded Clubs as ours, by standing firm in our beliefs. They will not be able to operate a National League if we ALL refuse to cooperate. If they try to impose such fines as has been bandied about, then we must ALL refuse to pay them.
This Board must be bought to justice - and be sacked, before they also bring the FA into disrepute!!! Do your job FA, or you will be certainly living up to the alternative meaning of your initials.

At least there cannot be a single Tory on this excuse of a Board, or else they wouldn't blatantly be continuing to break the law by demanding that Clubs play each other during a lockdown, especially with no regular testing being performed!! Does 'elite status' mean 'above the law'??

Notwithstanding this outburst - don't believe anything you hear, or even read on Twitter or other such unreliable media. Wait for the voting to be completed, by which time the completion of the current League fixtures will be too far behind to be meaningful (as if they aren't already!). If the vote goes against our wishes, then the real fight begins - and it has the best chance of succeeding if all like-minded Clubs stick together!

To clarify Twitter from Ollie Bayliss:

He is tweeting copies of clubs statements, I don't believe he is anything but genuine as I have confirmed most of these statements on the individual club website.

The voting on the resolutions cannot be confirmed until the polls are closed and the count concluded.  This raises the question of who is verifying the count?
I wouldn't trust the National League board to count the fingers on their hands...

No idea when the current league sponsorship comes to an end but I forsee problems when it does reach its conclusion. The National League management is showing itself to be so incompetent that major companies, whose  current finances are being hit, are hardly likely to be fighting to get their name associated with the brand.
Reduced or perhaps zero league sponsorship will, in turn, mean less income distribution for member clubs.

All the more reason for the Board to be replaced. Trying to find any constitution on the NL’s website is beyond me - the mass of League rules listed there doesn’t appear to cover such things as calling an emergency EGM which would be the normal procedure if an organisation’s members are unhappy with its leadership.

But again I ask what role should the FA be playing to resolve an increasingly toxic situation?

This afternoon: An announcement from the NL has been tweeted by Ollie Bayliss and there are some well considered comments.

The announcement can also be seen in Bath City Supporters page on Facebook.

This morning: There was another NL announcement type posting on BCS FB by someone unknown to me...but I haven't been able to verify...that Bath City FC have been sent a notification of breach of rule 8.39 in relation to the Ebbsfleet game.

This is the NL statement that Beau Nash refers to: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuCYHwsXYAEHL9B.png

Seems that the league have been forced into this by all of the comments flying around today. If they had only waited to see the outcome of the Resolutions...

Some thoughts on all of this (and apologies if I'm a bit slow off the mark with them, repeating points made earlier in the thread):

1) I know that it's too late now but shouldn't the season have been suspended for all 66 NL clubs for the 28 day voting period? Where's the sense in clubs having to spend money they probably haven't got whilst voting remains open if the season is then scrubbed once all the votes are in? What a waste!
2) Presumably most clubs exist as some form of Company (Limited or otherwise) and if they are broke should therefore not be trading and running up debt whilst they are insolvent as that is illegal. As I see it, by insisting clubs carry on regardless of their ability to fund carrying on is the NL, in effect, asking them to break the law?
3) And what, dear National League, about the Covid implications for everyone who has to take part in the continuation of the season (and, of course, the people they come into contact with outside of football, too) ............?

Three very valid points.

Another excellent statement from the Club today...

https://www.bathcityfc.com/bath-city-fc-national-league-and-fixture-update/

 As a Club, we wrote to the League last week outlining the reasons why we felt our fixture should be postponed, in line with above, but the only formal direct response we’ve had is a letter yesterday charging us for failure to play under rule 8.39.

As the NL has repeatedly showed its contempt for its member clubs (and others who have tried to communicate with it) by failing to reply to correspondence perhaps the time has come to ignore it.

Twerton Parker wrote:Some thoughts on all of this (and apologies if I'm a bit slow off the mark with them, repeating points made earlier in the thread):

1)  I know that it's too late now but shouldn't the season have been suspended for all 66 NL clubs for the 28 day voting period?  Where's the sense in clubs having to spend money they probably haven't got whilst voting remains open if the season is then scrubbed once all the votes are in?  What a waste!
2)  Presumably most clubs exist as some form of Company (Limited or otherwise) and if they are broke should therefore not be trading and running up debt whilst they are insolvent as that is illegal.  As I see it, by insisting clubs carry on regardless of their ability to fund carrying on is the NL, in effect, asking them to break the law?
3)  And what, dear National League, about the Covid implications for everyone who has to take part in the continuation of the season (and, of course, the people they come into contact with outside of football, too) ............?

1. I think it cannot be viewed as anything but a ploy to force clubs into playing. Really a week should have been sufficient from clubs to do the maths and work out whether it was possible for them to continue, whilst evaluating the terms of the financing.
2. Yes, but don't let something like the law get in the way of your vanity.
3. Like the lack of funding to support people to isolate, if the testing arrangement cannot be funded, along with the other costs, it should result in the same answer: end the season. Unless of course you take the most extreme Darwinist view of life and that only the fittest (richest) survive. How very 'now'.

The excellent 200% organisation - https://twohundredpercent.net/national-league-spiral - cover many points of issue.

Amongst them is this - ...and they seem blithely dismissive of the fact that company directors can be deemed to have broken the law if they trade while insolvent or load their companies with debt that they have no chance whatsoever of being able to repay. - a clear instruction of incitement by the National League for club directors to commit criminal offences under the Companies Acts was contained in the NL instructions to clubs to continue playing.

The board of the National League, any officer involved with advising said board, should be arrested and charged...

comrade powell wrote:Three very valid points.

Another excellent statement from the Club today...

https://www.bathcityfc.com/bath-city-fc-national-league-and-fixture-update/

 As a Club, we wrote to the League last week outlining the reasons why we felt our fixture should be postponed, in line with above, but the only formal direct response we’ve had is a letter yesterday charging us for failure to play under rule 8.39.

As the NL has repeatedly showed its contempt for its member clubs (and others who have tried to communicate with it) by failing to reply to correspondence perhaps the time has come to ignore it.

They are entirely correct. The position the NL has taken makes no sense whatsoever. It does underline however, the importance of having things in writing and not being willing to accept assurances. There's been too much wishful thinking by those in governance positions.

Reading the statement from Dulwich it’s a damming commentary on the league rules, however I wonder if these rules are any different to EFL, Premier League rules. If they are ‘standard’ then loosing and appealing to the FA, then the suits are likely to find the NL as being in the right.
And as a suggestion for continuing the fight I would hope that all teams charged with breach of 8.39 will pool their resources, hire a good barrister and fight it en-mass. The NL will find it easy to pick each team off one by one; they might think twice and have a pang of common sense when confronted by 15 teams acting as one.

5 more postponements in NL South tomorrow. All but 3 off in NL North. What planet are the suits on? Add in weather related postponements and we'd still be playing in July.

The Dulwich chairman is spot on about the tactics being used by some NL clubs...

https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/dulwich-hamlet-chairman-accuses-some-national-league-clubs-of-looking-to-subvert-voting-over-finishing-the-campaign/

Excellent points made by TP.
The thing about committees (or boards) is that the people who are prepared to sit on them are not necessarily the best people to be on them. What you need are methodical efficient decision makers. This is rarely the case for the simple reason that there are not many about and they don't want to be on a committee.
In my job I don't think I am particularly well organised but compared to everyone else I am so that shows the rarity. I have only ever come across a handful of super efficient people - all women PAs and none of those were strong decision makers. They worked for people who were strong decision makers and the two made a team. But none of these are 'committee' people. They wouldn't work well in a committee.

The title of this thread will need to be changed in 10 days time.

I hope the club has a strategy if the vote is to continue the season.

Back to turnstyle13. Dulwich well supported and well run club. They could provide leadership if we all stick together and find a lawyer who loves our kind of football. No individual cluB CAN TACkle the NL AND the FA successfully but if we all stick together we have a chance. Like everything else, non league football is going to be different After Covid. But we need a collective and legally informed voice. Onwards and Upwards. My first post in years! Sorry about random caps, have a broken finger.

Yes Agreed at some point everyone is going to have to accept that crowds come back to sporting and other events otherwise non league football is finished. Covid and its variants are not going away.