Graham Kelly: Old Firm not the answer for bruised Football League

The Premiership will be back this week, and so the bloodletting in the Nationwide League will occupy a less prominent place in the media. It is a great shame that the build up to the oldest League's kick-off on Saturday should have been overshadowed by the politicking which led to the resignations of chairman Keith Harris and chief executive David Burns.

Students of public relations will have found some fascinating case studies. On BBC Radio 5 Live Harris talked and talked of being self critical and having other things to do with his life, but really rather wanted to see to fruition the job he had started out on, until the listener must have suspected the Beeb's resident rottweiler, Garry Richardson, of having had his morning coffee spiked with bromide. Then all of a sudden, it was Burns, the paid official, who was being hung out to dry: "In the light of the personal criticism he has received," said Harris, "it's a question of whether he can carry out his function normally against that hostile background. That's a question he will no doubt ask himself over the next few days."

Two days later, on the morning of the fateful Football League board meeting, a friendly tabloid exclusively revealed the dismissal of Burns and the "fact" that Harris would survive to lead a radical restructuring of the Second and Third Divisions into regionalised leagues after being persuaded to stay on by a number of chairmen who had pleaded with him to ditch thoughts of resignation.

Harris having departed, the Ipswich Town chairman, David Sheepshanks, enjoys some support amongst the clubs for a return to the position of League chairman, which he occupied from 1997 to 1999, and, if the interview he gave recently counts as an early, some might say premature, declaration of interest, certainly no one could accuse him of complacency. His biggest fear "is that the Premiership could seal off its bottom as those in the Premiership don't want to be sent down to hell and Hades", thus consigning many famous names to lifelong oblivion. In any event, he foresees a number of Nationwide clubs going out of business.

Sheepshanks also advocates, for the usual commercial reasons, the inclusion of Celtic and Rangers in the First Division but feels there should be a moratorium on their promotion for three years.

I suspect that this idea of annexing the Old Firm to boost the marketability of Division One – or Phoenix to use the banner it briefly flew under – has never been fully thought through by the new business brains keen on revitalising football. Promotion is the very lifeblood of the game. What is the point in throwing out an extra two clubs to make way for clubs that would effectively be playing a season of friendly matches for television?

The whole integrity of the First Division, if it is not already pointless using the word, is going to be compromised and there is much more likelihood under those circumstances than at present of the Premier League refusing to accept a promoted club (and of the Football Association supporting them). Much of the resurgence of interest in the League has been due to the increased possibility of promotion via the play-offs.

Maybe with Harris gone the regionalisation proposals, which have hung around since the Phoenix crash-landed, will also fall. I cannot recall any chairman from the lower reaches ever speaking in favour of the idea. Surely this would be a parochial step for a nationwide league? People nowadays have more mobility, not less, unless one is a football supporter negotiating the railway's weekend manoeuvres. The chairmen are missing the problem if they believe they can wave a magic wand and simply re-market the League under a new improved regional logo and all their money worries will disappear.

Attendances have been rising for years, proof that there is plenty of interest in League football, but the danger now is that, through the chairmen either talking the game into crisis or their need to make savage cost-cutting measures, interest will decline or standards will fall.

It is the game's authorities who should act, jointly, to restore confidence by beefing up measures to improve the financial credibility of their membership. Auditors should enter clubs and sound the alarm bells, where necessary, to avoid them sinking further into the mire. Rules obliging clubs to have security of tenure fully independent of their owners' whims are long overdue.

Representatives of the First Division meet this week to consider an independent report which recommends the establishment of a new independent board of directors, including an overall League chief executive and individual chief executives for the First Division and for the Second and Third Divisions together. It's beginning to sound like the National Health Service.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com