AFC Fylde owner looks to launch chairmen's 'working group' to bring change to National League

David Haythornthwaite has written to all his fellow chairmen in the National League

Fylde relauanch women's team with new home and managers

The Coasters' owner has expressed his frustrations with what he perceives as a lack of leadership from the National League and Haythornthwaite wants to see the chairmen play a more decisive role.

Issues he would like to see on the working group agenda include a salary cap and maximum squad sizes.

“Five or six” other chairmen have expressed an interest in joining the group, he said, and Haythornthwaite told his club’s website: “This crisis has made people sit up and think. It’s maybe shaken some sense into all of us about how we run our clubs.

“That great word we use – ‘sustainability’, that none of us achieve, is maybe starting to resonate a little bit.

“I wrote to every chariman in our league and invited them to join a working group.

“This sort of thing should be coming from our executive. The technology is there to have meetings – I’ve been having meetings with my staff almost every day.

“They say in life you can watch it happen or make it happen, so I thought: ‘Let’s try to make it happen.’

“I’ve had five or six replies so far from people who said, ‘Yes, we’d like to work together.’”

A priority in any discussions would be a wage cap for the English game’s fifth tier, as is also being debated at higher levels.

Haythornthwaite said: “A salary cap of £1.25m for players’ wages has been suggested for League Two. In our league, I think the number would have to be around £750,000.

“In the last two seasons, Leyton Orient and Salford City paid way more than that and no-one could compete with them.

“But if we had a salary cap we’d start to get some sanity because it would necessitate the managers being more skilful and our whole management structure thinking about what we did.”

As for restricting the number of senior players in each squad, Haythornthwaite credits league rivals Boreham Wood with the idea.

He added: “They suggested having a maximum squad of 20 and I think that’s a great idea.

“All the rest would be young players. We’d be giving a chance for young English players to come through the league and I’m interested in that concept.

“That and a salary cap would be beneficial for all of us.”

Haythornthwaite acknowledges there are more pressing questions yet to be resolved, however.

He added: “We’ve started the process and, hopefully, in a couple of weeks we can get together and start some conversations.

“There’s no massive rush because everyone is concerned about the league. We need clarity on when next season will start.

“We need to know when we can start signing players and when we can do renovation on our pitch.”

The National League clubs agreed on April 22 to play no more league games this season but have held no further votes on how to end the season.

The clubs were asked a month ago for their views on play-offs, which Fylde are opposed to.

However, the way was paved for a possible play-off competition this week, when the FA sanctioned the extension of the National League campaign beyond the end of this month.

At the start of the week Haythornthwaite was highly critical of the National League hierarchy.

He said: “We’ve just got a total void at the top of the National League. We are getting no decision-making or clarity.”