AFC Telford to get £13k Prem cash advance
AFC Telford United will receive a £13,636 boost as part of the Premier League’s pledge to provide financial assistance to English football’s pyramid.
Top flight clubs agreed earlier this month to advance payments totalling £125m to clubs in the EFL and National League during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Bucks and fellow clubs in the National League North division will all receive £13,636 from the total pot.
But while the money is welcomed and will help ease the immediate pressure on cashflow, what happens next is less clear with the windfall merely an advancement on funds clubs would have received next season.
Clubs also face a possible delay before learning precisely how their season will be resolved, with the National League poised to vote on how to conclude the campaign.
Somewhat complex voting rules mean that while the 24 clubs in the Premier Division get a vote each, just four votes apiece are allocated to the National League North and South divisions.
Clubs in the North Division are understood to have met last week and agreed unanimously to vote to end the season.
But the National League have set a deadline of May 7 for clubs to return their votes and a delay looks likely with some in the Premier Division already criticising the process.
The vote on whether or not to end the season is set to be followed by another to determine whether promotion or relegation should apply between the divisions.
Both Notts County and Yeovil have voiced their opposition to the vote. Yeovil chairman Scott Priestnall claimed over the weekend that the situation had not been “thought through properly”.
He said: “We actually don’t know what we are voting on. If we potentially vote to end the season we don’t know what the ramifications of that might be.
“Are we then going to vote on promotion, relegation and play-offs? It’s mooted that’s a possibility. Are we going to retain the existing places that we have got? There’s so many things that are unanswered in this current situation.
“Our position is that we don’t want to vote at all and we’ll be certainly lobbying to get this motion amended so that we are actually voting on the real outcome of the season rather than an immediate outcome of the season.”
