Great post, I agree 100%, what the hell is happening with modern football?The club I work for are an ex Conference club. in 1988 we had to stop playing as our ground was sold. We started again in 2000 at THE bottom of the pyramid. Since 2000 we have won 4 titles and 6 promotions to get to the Conference North. 2 steps below League 2.
Stick in a League 3 and you are effectively pushing us down another level after we worked fucking hard to get to where we are now. why, because for some reason people think that u21s playing at level 4 will benefit England.
Bollocks.
if they are good enough between 17 and 21 they will be pushing the first team. Rooney, Shaw to name but 2. With the way the academies are set up now premier clubs have the pick of the best youth in the country anyway, so why not sign these players, give them the academy coaching, but leave them at the club they signed them from to also develop within the first team arena. Don't sign them, train them and then basically play them against other u21s and conference players. That won't help.
The only way to assist is the restriction on foreign players, and an u21 rule for the 1st team as they do in Scotland. They won't though because of that one thing. Money.
The FA need to look at bringing more coaches through, reducing the costs of getting badges and get rid of the red tape.
As I mentioned before. German clubs want to do away with the B league and bring back the u21 league, so what do they know that we don't?
Oh and one other thing, the Premier League have basically blackmailed the League and Conference by telling them they will reduce funding if they don't accept this proposal. Fair?
Back in the 70's Liverpool won the league & European cup and used something like 13 players all season. Today top flight clubs have bloated first team squads and endless players in the youth teams. And they wonder why they all can't get a game. There was nothing wrong with the old football combination, at least that competition gave the clubs an opportunity to give playing time to fringe players and minutes on the pitch to those coming back from injury.
The FA are supposed to be the guardians of our game, they are duty bound to look after the interest of the game as a whole, and that includes non league teams as well.
I watch a lot of non league footy, and fans at that level are really against the league 3 idea, and this new plan is another ill thought out idea just to appease the top flight clubs.