Duffers' Diaries: Three promotion spots into EFL from National League has to happen

As things stand, one team goes up automatically and another via the play-offs, albeit those are more drawn out nowadays given they accommodate the sides finishing as low as seventh.

But pressure is now being applied for a second automatic spot. That would, you’d hope, also mean a switch to the more traditional four-team play-off competition rather than bringing eight place into the equation, but that is a finer detail yet to be revealed should the FA agree to the change.

Put simply, this change needs to take place.

As time goes by, the National League’s top division is becoming more and more a ‘League Three’ given the relative size of some of the clubs that play in it, with the majority of the division being full-time and even clubs in National League North and South also being professional outfits.

The term ‘non-league’ is something of a misnomer in this day and age, even if it does offer a straightforward and technically accurate distinction between the EFL and the ‘non-EFL’ levels.

But gone are the days when non-league was perhaps too easily seen as a bit of a laughing stock amongst fans of professional clubs, particularly at the top end where stadiums, pitches and fanbases are sometimes more impressive than those in League Two and where upsets in the cups are now more commonplace.

Of course, on a financial level the gulf remains sizeable – the relative jumps between steps three and two, then two and one, being considerable. But those who have been promoted to League Two have very often held their own remarkably well, with several making an immediate hop to League One and others remaining established.

At the same time, Football League stalwarts like Southend United, Oldham Athletic and Rochdale, to name but a few, have fallen through the League Two trapdoor and become faced with a considerable challenge to get back up again.

It’s clubs like those, in particular, that will no doubt be among the fiercest advocates for a third promotion spot, such is their desire to return to the relative big time. Winning the National League is hard enough, but the play-offs are a different kind of evil for those involved if you don’t win them and ‘bigger’ clubs are often falling by the wayside despite having had strong seasons and perhaps only missed out on top spot by a point or two.

And you’ve only got to look at the famous Wrexham/Notts County battle a couple of years ago to know just how unfair it might have been had County not ultimately gone up, especially if it had been the seventh-placed team instead, for example.

There is the argument that allocating a third spot might favour the bigger clubs more, but all 72 clubs have agreed to this so it seems all believe it would be a positive move.

Of course, the flipside to the whole argument will be that clubs in League Two might not be all that chuffed about the prospect of another relegation place, but let’s face it, three or four relegation places is more often than not the norm anyway, and is the case throughout the rest of the EFL and Premier League, so there wouldn’t be too much of a case for them to put forward.

We’ve come a very long way since the days of clubs having to be re-elected to the Football League were a thing, and even since it was only ‘one up, one down’. The thought of dropping out of the Football League is also no longer perceived to be the plunge into oblivion that it perhaps used to be, and that would be even more the case if you got three bites at coming back up again rather than just one.

So, will this move happen? I honestly can’t see how the FA can dismiss it outright – they’ve seen it fit to change things before and given the volume of support the proposal has behind it, they’d be foolish to not seriously consider it, perhaps even with a view to introducing it in time for the 2025/26 season, or certainly 2026/27 if this summer is too soon.

The effect in National League South and North will be minimal initially, unless it’s also deemed worthwhile adding more promotion places there but that is much harder to facilitate given it would need more than four to come down from step one and split into the two leagues, which isn’t really viable.

But the fact that every single club has agreed to this change shows some encouraging unity amongst members who clearly acknowledge that the National League is very strong already, and could certainly be made even stronger.