Peter Corrigan: The Phoenix fear: will it all end in tiers?

By the time we get to Phoenix the old bird ought to be unrecognisable. Hatched in secret by six upper-middle-class clubs, the proposed alteration to the structure of our domestic football season has been passed back to the conspirators.

That might not be the end of it, but if the Phoenix League does rise it will do so from the back-burner on to which its tail was firmly lowered by a meeting of the Football League on Thursday. The 72 clubs who comprise the three divisions of the Football League left them in no doubt that a more democratic solution ought to be sought than the selfish creation of a second tier to the Premiership.

The six clubs were Coventry, Manchester City, Birmingham, Sheffield Wednesday, Bradford and Wolves, who claim to have the backing of many Premiership clubs. But top clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, Leeds and Liverpool have so far kept a haughty distance.

The Phoenix League would consist of two divisions of 18 teams each. Celtic and Rangers would leave the Scottish League to play in the second division of the new Premiership.

The rest of the division would comprise the two relegated from the existing Premiership, the "secret" six plus others to be decided – one or two could get in on what it called "stadium criteria". In other words, this would be cherry-picking based more on crowd potential than League position. Those left out in the cold would have only one automatic promotion spot to the Phoenix League, one other being decided in a play-off.

It is quite clear what the rebel clubs are seeking. It has become customary to label our top clubs, and those who would emulate them, as greedy. I have no doubt that fear is a far greater motivator.

Although we have been dreading a massive cull for decades it has never happened, and I believe it never will, except for the odd wayside-faller that you get in any activity.

But the Phoenix supporters look at the Premiership and realise that the top eight are likely to be permanent fixtures but that the others will be involved in an annual fight to avoid being one of the three relegated clubs. Even if they bounce back they are going to face a future of going up and down like yo-yos, with the elastic becoming more frayed every time.

A second Premiership division would create a softer, more lucrative landing and a more appealing competition for the television companies to fight over, particularly with Celtic and Rangers involved. It would stimulate interest just when TV is wondering if the game is worth all the money it is paying for it.

But there must be doubts whether this second emigration of the bigger clubs – I mean those with big gate potential – will be as beneficial as the first Premiership move. It would give them a powerful collective voice in television negotiations that would push the lower clubs further into the dark, and they could eventually decide that their biggest enemy was still relegation and pull up the ladder.

Even if it is as perilous as an Afghanistan mountain trail in the middle of winter, there has to be a way for the lowest club to aspire to reach the very top. That has been a fundamental part of our game since it began.

There can be no argument that we need to invigorate the game domestically, and the Football League clubs who met at Notts County last Thursday were not afraid to recognise it. While promising to take the Phoenix idea into consideration they announced an immediate review into the structure and financing of English football.

I trust that the review will make a serious examination of what has been the basic problem with our season – it is too long and involves far too many clubs in competitions that become meaningless for them even before Christmas is reached.

No matter how high the overall standard they attain, 70 per cent of our clubs have little left to play for once the season is half over, apart from fighting against relegation, which is a rather negative way to create interest.

The triumph of football these days is that the smaller clubs are still capable of drawing good attendances. Once more, the recent rounds of the FA Cup have reminded us of that. And it is the stimulation of that drawing power that the League should concentrate on. Getting people to want to watch football should be the point of the exercise.

Not everyone seems to have noticed that, despite all the glamorous matches in the European Champions' League and Premiership seen regularly – too regularly for some of us – on television, the bedrock of interest is still in the local clubs.

Considering the counter-attractions present today, outside as well as inside football, some of the attendances are excellent, and although we cannot play the FA Cup every week we could find a structure that would give every club more vital matches per season.

I have campaigned for years for our interminably long season to be curtailed. If it was split in half either side of Christmas it would offer a way to freshen the the appetite of the supporters, who are still the most important customers.

In order to do this we would have to do the unthinkable, and clubs would play each other only once in the first half of the season. The top 10 would then move up and the bottom 10 drop down. The second half of the season would give each club a new fixture list against opposition to which it was suited.

That would create two climaxes for the price of one and plenty of increased interest for the fans. It would also fast-track clubs to where they deserve to be by right, not by privilege.