English football will never be the same again.
Well… until someone decides to mess around with it again in a decade or so.
Anyway, The Football League have announced plans to introduce an extra division from the start of the 2019-2020 season, meaning there will be 100 professional teams in England instead of the existing 92.
The existing model sees 24 teams in the Championship, League One and League Two. With the new plans in place, each of these three leagues will hold 20 teams. Another league would then be introduced (a League Three, if you like), also featuring 20 teams.
The plan has received the backing of the Premier League and FA ‘in principle’ but needs to be approved by the current Football League clubs (all 72 of them) at their annual general meeting in June 2017.
So what’s the point in it all then? Well, one of the main reasons for a potential change would be to reduce fixture congestion over the course of the season.
With fewer teams in each league, scheduling conflicts and midweek fixtures will (hopefully) become a thing of the past.
We’ve a while to wait until the plans are rubber stamped, but in 13 months time, the landscape of English football could be on its way to the biggest shake-up it’s seen since the Premier League was formed in the early 1990s.
