DATE FOR RELEASE OF FIXTURES AND AGM REPORTS
Promotion and relegation system set out by FA
It was announced at today’s league annual general meeting that the fixture list for the 2021-22 season will be published at 9am on Monday (June 21).
The fixtures will be published on the league website and they have been made available to clubs so they can publish their fixtures on their social media platforms at the same time.
The opening matches will be held on Saturday, July 31 and the last round of fixtures will be on the weekend of April 16, 2022.
In his report to the AGM, chairman Glenn Youngman said it was a “strange decision” by the FA to class the 2019-20 season as null and void only then to combine results with the curtailed 2020-21 season to decide which clubs would gain promotion on an overall points per game over the two seasons.
He said: “In one season we had played approximately 75% of the games but in the season just finished we had only completed approximately 25%. I believe that promotion and relegation should be decided on the field of play.”
Two clubs appealed the decision by the FA not to promote them from our feeder leagues into league.
“The FA informed the clubs that it was the Ebac Northern League who “recommended” the clubs for promotion. At no point, either at the grounds inspection or within the document sent to the FA did we recommend any club as that is not our job. We have now written to both clubs informing them that we completed the inspections, reported back our findings to the FA and it is up to the governing body to place a club into a league within the National League System.”
Glenn thanked Ebac chairman John Elliott for the company’s continued, generous sponsorship, along with George Courtney who has been league president for 25 years and Motif8 for their kit sponsorship arrangements with the league.
League secretary Kevin Hewitt added:
“The positive and most significant news, as we ‘hopefully’ move out of the pandemic, is all 40 clubs have survived and that is in the main down to volunteers and club officials for their commitment to the non-league game as well as the financial support received from HM Government.
“Volunteers at clubs, year in/year out, keep grassroots football in existence and I sincerely hope that there’s some football for everyone to enjoy this coming season.”
Promotion and relegation:
The Ebac Northern League operates at Step 5 (first division) and Step 6 (second division) in the National League System (NLS). The system and criteria for promotion and relegation set out by the FA can be found on pages 4-5 of this document:
However, the FA has contacted leagues to say that to achieve consistency across all play-off matches, the FA will contact leagues or confirm the arrangements for the Step 6 play-offs in due course. And they added that the Step 4 and 5 play-off conditions may be decided near to the time as they could involve “significant travel”, with the FA’s Alliance and Leagues committees may decide to assess where clubs are based before deciding how the play-off matches are to be approached; with arrangements again being confirmed closer to the time.