Time to make the claim famer, the English pyramid system is unique, it’s untouchable, it’s the World’s best, forget the individual medallion making sporting GOATs, the pyramid founded in 1888 is the biggest GOAT (Greatest of All Time) sport has ever created, it’s a magnificent beast never to be slayed. The selected leagues in the pyramid are of an amateur pursuit regional leagues with dirt track pitches with crowds that run into the hundreds at the base end, but they all have a dream to climb the pyramid, no country can challenge, no country can compare, from the Premiership to Level 11 with 6492 teams competing, astonishing figures we are the creation of football stand tall and proud wear the badge with pride.

Notts County founder member of the Football League, attracted a record 13000 attendance for the highest level of non-League football at Level 5 the National League with attendances averaging out at 3000 across the tiered 5, that’s more than some second tier teams in France, Italy and Spain, the only Nationwide 5^th tier of any footballing nation, add to the mix with Oldham Athletic being the first former Premiership club to trail blaze at Level 5 unmasks the stone to drop like one or to rise up the pyramid with the Eagle has Landed glorification and the calamitous link to article the ‘Holy Grails’ March 31^st 2022. Non-League football is surging with attendances up 50% since the pandemic, despite the unequal distribution of wealth in the game.

In recent times twenty Football League clubs have been put to the sword by non-League opposition. Early doors March 2022 Boreham Wood became the tenth non-League club to make it to the FA Cup Quarter Final stage losing out to Everton two to nil to give on confirmation that the pyramid’s in depth leagues are levels above any in world football, the non-League. At the top end, the Premiership is the richest and most popular globally to sit alongside the world’s largest academies. The academies could be termed as a washout, a dreary punch out of figures. At the elite level with 97 percent of academy players never fulfilling the dream to play in the Premiership to 70 percent never signing on the dotted line, a ‘professional footballer’s’ contract. The cattle market syndrome players on intake to hopes and dreams being dashed that’s the brutality of football, that’s what the public do not see or cannot relate to, yes football is the beautiful game, but it has a dark sinister side. Clubs striving to find the raw uncut diamond to develop but it is hard to determine which players will become the success story.

A bigger picture prevails with youngsters to home grown players with opportunities reduced due to the foreign player brigade leading to a bottle neck of thousands of talented players pipe holed into the themed ‘free agents’. A drop zone into the lower leagues is the singular route or to fade from the football landscape on release from club one to three academy level structures. Many players do find their way back up the pyramid with Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy being the standard bearer to achieve the impossible to lift the Premiership trophy with the Foxes in 2016, a remarkable achievement for Vardy and the club. Other players of note are the former Manchester United defender Chris Smalling who was released by Millwall and drop zoned to Maidstone United. The former Welsh International Ashley Williams who plied his trade at 7^th tier Hednesford Town on release from West Bromwich Albion and later went on to play for Everton.

The major plus for players at academy level is to receive elite level coaching. All the non-League clubs are now professional, bar three clubs who are using the hybrid model to remain professional and semi-pros in the mix. Professionalism in the non-League has increased, and aided by a 100 million pounds a season pot from the leagues central generated television rights contract. An influx of 80,000 pounds per club at non-League level with the remainder of the cash cow staying in the Football League. It has to be said that a bigger cow is required in the NL. On the legality and general coverage, the NL comes under the umbrella of CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and TAS the Tribunal Arbitral du Sport. The Football Leagues One and Two come under the remit of the Salary Management Protocol (SMP). The Championship League is under the termed Profit and Sustainability rules (PNS). Despite the coverage, the non-League parameters have no regulation set in place with a number of clubs receiving enormous amounts of owner investments respective of the level of football, the knock on effect. Clubs on the large cash influx being Crawley Town, Salford City, Billericay Town, AFC Slough Town, Ebbsfleet United and the media savvy AFC Wrexham.