Page 11 - Ashton & Backwell FC v Wellington 070323

League Announcement

WESTERN LEAGUE RESPONSE TO
THE STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE
Non-League Paper
SOUTH WEST PENINSULA LEAGUE

The Board of the Western Football League can confirm that talks with
representatives from the South West Peninsula League, concerning the
creation of a new Western Peninsula League, have broken down.

The merger between the two Leagues was always intended to bring
together the best of both Leagues and whilst a huge amount of progress
has been made, talks broke down over the roles and responsibilities that
will sit at the heart of the new Leagues administration. Despite the
intervention of the Football Association, which we welcomed, it has not
been possible to resurrect the merger. We were due to meet with
representatives of the SWPL today (6 February) to agree on the one
th
outstanding issue which is the role of the football secretary. However
this was pre-empted by a statement put out by the SWPL stating that
they would no longer be engaging in any further discussions with the
Meet the Player
Western League.
The Western League Board strongly believe in devolving roles for fixture
management, player registration and the administration of League
business across a number of individuals, working collectively as a team.
In this way, we have been able to support each other in times of
difficulty and enable succession planning, as volunteers leave their roles.
Combining these critical functions within one role is not what we believe
to be good practice. As a compromise we agreed that the football
secretary would handle registrations and transfers. We further offered
that fixture scheduling could be managed between the football secretary
and the fixtures secretary. At which point the talks broke down.

We recognise that this decision has profound implications for Clubs
currently competing in the Western League Premier Division, specifically
in relation to their costs of travel and for that reason we remain
committed to find a solution across the South West of England. We
welcome the opportunity to discuss how this might best be achieved
with the Football Association, going forward.
We would like to take this opportunity to place on record our sincere
thanks to all those individuals, from both Leagues, who have acted in
good faith and volunteered their time and expertise, having made a
genuine commitment to make this merger happen.