End of Imps’ dreams if Premier League pull up the drawbridge

It is a dream that my beloved Lincoln City will one day ascend to English football’s top flight.

It is a silly dream, a surely impossible dream, but it is a cherished dream nonetheless.

And it is a dream that would be unceremoniously dashed if, as has been mooted, relegation from – and promotion to – the Premier League was scrapped.

For the benefit of any oligarchs reading, not all of us support Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea et al.

Some of us even spend our hard-earned cash furnishing the coffers of the Blue Square Bet Premier League, where little old Lincoln reside after suffering relegation last season from the Football League.

If relegation from the Premier League was eradicated, there would be a cartel of clubs controlling the game.

The consequences do not need spelling out to anyone who supports smaller clubs such as the Imps, or even larger clubs such as Leeds, who currently operate outside the chosen few.

But if the words of Richard Bevan, chief executive of the League Managers’ Association, are to be believed, a ruling elite is a real possibility.

At a conference of the Professional Players’ Federation in London last week, Bevan warned: “There are a number of overseas-owned clubs already talking about bringing about the avoidance of promotion and relegation in the Premier League.

“If we have four or five more new owners, that could happen.

“Certainly you’ll find that with American owners and you’ll find that with some of the Asian owners.”

Ten of the 20 Premier League clubs are under overseas ownership: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, QPR and Sunderland.

It would need a minimum of 14 clubs to ratify such a move, although there is a feeling the Football Association would step in to veto any proposal.

But can Bevan’s words be blithely dismissed as something that could simply never happen?

Only if you believe that nothing in football is sacred any more and in outmoded concepts such as tradition and integrity.

It was only a few days ago that Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre raised the question of ending the equitable distribution of international television revenue in yet another depressing sign of the times.

Ayre suggested it should be shared according to each club’s popularity with overseas audiences, meaning (shock horror) the likes of Liverpool would get richer.

These comments allegedly followed discussions between American owners including the Glazer family and appeared to suggest an informal lobby is now taking shape among Premier League shareholders, just as Bevan inferred another lobby is developing among overseas owners to ditch relegation.

Football, alas, is being systematically sold to the highest bidder and I would not bet the cover price of the Yorkshire Post against the Premier League one day pulling up the drawbridge on the Championship and Football League.

Along with the self-serving interests of overseas owners, one of the biggest problems is that promotion and relegation has never been the American way.

In the US, fixed membership exists in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the minor leagues that serve as their feeder teams.

Clubs operate as franchises and are bought, sold and sometimes moved from city to city with the approval of rival owners, but never relegated.

Leagues expand but rarely contract, with membership – and attendant financial security – guaranteed.

A similar licence/franchise system also operates in Super League rugby.

Clubs are protected against relegation for a three-year period.

A principal objective of that system is to discourage the boom and bust scenario whereby clubs spend money they haven’t got in an effort to avoid relegation or win promotion.

Its advocates also insist it promotes the development of home-grown players as, with no threat of relegation, they say there is less incentive for clubs to spend large sums of money on overseas imports.

But Super League is mainly confined to northern England and is a totally different kettle of fish to football, where there are more professional clubs and much more at stake financially.

Sir Alex Ferguson, whose Manchester United team cannot be accused of having a vested interest in the matter seeing as relegation is not a word heard at Old Trafford, believes it would be disastrous to dump the existing system.

“I think that would be absolute suicide for the rest of the League and particularly teams in the Championship,” said Ferguson. “You might as well lock the doors.

“The only place you can make money and realise your ambitions is in the Premier League, and you can’t take that away from clubs like Nottingham Forest, Leeds United, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday.

“All these great teams, who formed the nucleus of our old First Division all those years ago.

“It would be unwise to do that (abolish relegation).”

Leeds owner Ken Bates has also come out against the suggestion.

“Maybe there is some insecurity or feelings of inferiority driving these ideas,” he commented.

‘Maybe they (the overseas owners) don’t have the confidence to run a successful club. Maybe they are scared of going down.

“All I would say is that if they don’t like our system and our rules, they should go somewhere else.

“English football was a first-class operation before the foreign owners came and it will still be first-class when they have gone.”

David Sullivan, co-chairman of West Ham, added his weight to the argument by insisting: “The whole thing is a nonsense.

“If they want sport with no promotion or relegation they can go back to America and own American football teams.”

Not often do I find myself toasting the comments of Ferguson – even less so those of Bates and Sullivan, but they are talking complete common sense on this issue.

To scrap relegation from the Premier League would be to kill off the aspirations of the vast majority of professional clubs and the dreams of their supporters.

Let’s face it, the only way little old Lincoln are going to reach the top-flight is if my Fred Trueman book sells so well that I can afford to take over as chairman.

But where there’s life there’s hope, and, without hope, we have nothing.