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FA announce league system restructure – West Didsbury & Chorlton AFC

FA announce league system restructure

As confirmed on the NWCFL website today, the Football Association have recent announced plans for the restructuring of the league pyramid system. In short, there are plans to create two additional leagues for the 2018/19 season – one at Step 3, and another at Step 4 – in order to reduce the amount of travel needed for clubs around those levels.

Our current division, the North West Counties Football League Premier, is classified as step 5, and this restructure has the potential to impact the forthcoming campaign – with the potential for two teams from our division to gain promotion this season, and for additional relegation spots to also be opened up. The NWCFL explain the implications more fully, as per below:

This coming season, all Step 5 Division Champion Clubs across the country (14) will be promoted to a Step 4 Division, and the next 12 runners up across the Step 5 Divisions with the best points per game ratio will also be promoted.

The club finishing bottom of the 6 current Step 4 Divisions will be relegated to Step 5 (6 in total). That will give the required number of Clubs to form the two New Divisions.

So, we could have 2 promoted from our League, and we could have 1 or 2 Clubs relegated to our Premier Division, dependent who finishes bottom of the Northern Premier League First Divisions, North & South.

Promotion and relegation between our Premier and First Divisions will stay the same, i.e. 3 up and 3 down. For this season, with us having 23 Clubs in the Premier Division it would normally mean the bottom 4 clubs would be relegated at the end of this season, to revert to 22 Clubs in that Division.

However, in order to reduce the Division to 20 Clubs, it means the following would take place:

If no club is relegated to us from Step 4, it means that 4 Clubs will be relegated to the First Division.

If 1 club is relegated to us from Step 4 it means that 5 clubs will be relegated to the First Division.

If 2 clubs are relegated to us from Step 4 it means that 6 clubs will be relegated to the First Division.

So in summary, between 4 and 6 Clubs will be relegated at the end of the coming season, from the Premier Division to the First Division.

For more information, read the full NWCFL statement here: http://www.hallmarksecurityleague.com/news-articles.php?id=6038

Further clarifications and updates are to be made by the FA throughout the season.