Creeping crisis

The news this week that Accrington Stanley's non playing club staff (from Chief Executive Rob Heys down) are reportedly being asked to  take a whopping 40% cut in wages is not only a worrying development for the Lancashire club, but a warning of the measures that some other outfits in the lower two divisions may have to take.

While Accrington is well off my 'beat', the club's situation is worth mentioning because several of the clubs I do cover are now sitting in League Two.

Last season after Macclesfield played at Hereford I had a chat with the then manager Gary Simpson who told me that he had players on the pitch that evening who were being paid £250 a week and so it's important that fans don't get the impression that it's the lads kicking the ball who are bleeding clubs dry.

The money filtering down football's food chain has all but dried up and it is time that the FA, the Football League and the Premier League clubs got together and took a long hard look at how the leagues are structured and financed for the good of the game long term.

The fact that there are owners of clubs in the Premier League who are making noises about making the top flight a closed shop can only add to the lower league clubs' concerns. With no prospect of fighting to reach the 'promised land' (even if, for some, it is pure fantasy), another incentive to follow the smaller teams is removed. The romance disappears as quickly as the crowds.

Fortunately people like Wigan Chairman Dave Whelan and Sir Alex Ferguson are around to pour scorn on the idea. But they are real football people who have both spent their lives on the pitch as well as in the board room or dug out.

But what of the growing number of men and women in top flight boardrooms who are just as interested in the results of the half-yearly finances as the results of the games themselves? Do their priorities really lend themselves to the long term interests of football? I fear they may not.