By Chris Harris
The second part turns the spotlight on the top end of the pyramid. Here the focus is on the EFL, why the Football League has resisted branding a formal Division Five, how its clubs protect their own status, and why the National League has become a fifth division in everything but name. It’s about modern politics, commercial pressure, and the subtle ways the pyramid works even when the labels don’t.
From the point of view of the top four divisions, the idea of creating an official “League Division 5” has never really been about footballing fairness. It’s always been about protecting the brand. Football, at every level, runs on self-interest, and the Football League (now the EFL) has spent the last 30 years trying to hold onto its own place in the market as the sport has changed around it.
Since the Premier League arrived, the whole landscape has shifted, TV money, global rights, full-time professionalism spreading down the pyramid. In that world, every division in the EFL carries a bit of commercial weight. Even the name of a division matters. The Championship, for example, is marketed almost like a product of its own. It works because it sounds important, looks important, and feels separate from what’s below it.
Bringing in a formal Division Five would cut across that. It would mean admitting something many League Two clubs quietly know but don’t like to say: that the gap between League Two and the National League has all but disappeared. And if the EFL stamped its name on a fifth division, there would be pressure to treat its clubs more like full EFL members, giving them a say in governance, sharing revenue, raising minimum standards, the lot. For many existing League clubs, especially the ones living hand-to-mouth, that sounds like a threat, not an opportunity. A turkey voting for Christmas scenario.
Fear of Downward Pressure and Growing Parity
For years, the clubs near the bottom of the Football League have lived with an uncomfortable truth: plenty of National League sides are bigger, richer, and better supported than they are. The fifth tier has become fully professional, well-run, and competitive. In simple terms, the quality gap is gone. Many in tier 6 North and South are on parity with the lower clubs in Division 2.
That’s exactly why many League Two clubs don’t want the National League officially branded as “Division Five.” Doing that would confirm what everyone can already see, that the old hierarchy is over. The moment the EFL recognises the fifth tier as one of its own, the calls will grow louder for more relegation places. Right now, only two clubs go down each season. Turn the National League into Division Five, and suddenly three or four relegation spots starts to feel inevitable.
For clubs already budgeting month to month, that would be a nightmare. The financial risk shoots up, and the safety net shrinks. By keeping the National League as something “other,” something outside the EFL, League Two clubs protect themselves from that pressure, psychologically and practically.
Historical Inertia and the Comfort of Distance
There’s also the pull of history. For most of its life, the Football League was a closed members’ club. Even after automatic promotion arrived in the 1980s, the old mindset stuck around. League status was something different, a badge of belonging to a particular institution. And while the modern game has blurred those lines, plenty of clubs still cling to them.
Keeping the National League at arm’s length helps preserve that identity. It allows League Two clubs to tell themselves they’re part of a separate, older, more established competition, not just another rung on a long ladder. It might seem sentimental, but it matters. Rebranding the National League as Division Five would flatten that identity and make the whole pyramid feel more seamless. And for many in the EFL, that’s a step too far.
A Fifth Division in Everything But Name
The truth is simple: the National League has been a de facto Division Five for years. The football is good, the clubs are professional, and the crowds are strong. The only thing missing is the label.
And that missing label is no accident. The reluctance of the top four divisions to embrace a formal “Division Five” comes down to three things: money, self-protection, and tradition. Ambitious non-league clubs want clarity. EFL clubs often prefer the grey area, a system that behaves like a five division structure without ever admitting it’s become one.
Call it what you want, but for more than a decade, it has been Division Five in everything but title.
The Irony
The optics, in truth, are that league two is bottom of the pile, a division devoid of energy except for the odd peak in interest when a ‘giant’ slips into non-league. But that has lost it’s fear factor as club’s are just dropping into a division, top of a large non league pile, more vibrant, more interesting and easier to get back into.
#National League #Non League Football #EFL #Football Pyramid #Non League Divisions
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