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Rotherham chairman Tony Stewart believes 15 clubs will vote to end League One season

Tony Stewart believes there is little appetite in League One to carry on playing
Image: Tony Stewart believes there is little appetite in League One to carry on playing

Rotherham chairman Tony Stewart believes there are 15 clubs who will vote to end the League One season next week.

The third tier is in limbo as the English Football League is yet to decide how to conclude the 2019-20 campaign, with a meeting set for Tuesday.

The governing body is keen to use the points-per-game system, but a "number of proposals" have been put forward by other clubs who are not happy with the outcome of PPG.

Tranmere chairman Mark Palios, whose club would be relegated, has been a vocal critic and has presented his own method - a plan which factors in a statistical margin of error into the PPG analysis and has the potential to create an expanded play-off format.

Once a framework is agreed by clubs across the three EFL divisions, League One's fate will then be decided by a vote on whether to play on or not - with League Two already agreeing to stop.

Tranmere chairman Mark Palios
Image: Tranmere chairman Mark Palios has put forward an alternative proposal to PPG

Unsurprisingly Rotherham will vote in favour of PPG, given they will be promoted to the Championship under that method, but Stewart says there is little appetite within the division to carry on playing, no matter what framework is used.

"We have played 80 per cent of the fixtures," he said. "We are where we are, we have earned it over 35 games and so who is the Midas guy to come up with something that pips that?

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"We are frozen in time. You ring around clubs and the consensus we get is that there is not a desire to complete the fixtures.

"I don't think for one minute the team that is fourth bottom, just out of the relegation position, is going to want to continue and the teams right up to 10th will feel the same.

"We believe about 15 clubs would vote against carrying on.

"The fact is it is going to cost us £150,000 to do the testing and you have to bring people out of furlough."

'Football should look after itself'

Oliver Dowden is Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Image: Oliver Dowden says sports should initially look after themselves

Football should "first look after itself", a government minister has said, after calls were made for a state-backed plan to help English Football League clubs avoid insolvency in the coronavirus pandemic.

A plan co-authored by Sunderland co-owner Charlie Methven and former Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee chair Damian Collins has called for the establishment by the Football Association of a Football Finance Authority (FFA), underwritten by the Government, which would provide funds to keep clubs affected by the coronavirus outbreak afloat.

Collins argued there may only be a few weeks "to save professional football as we know it", with League One and Two clubs in particular stretched by the complete loss of matchday revenue.

He asked the current secretary of state for DCMS, Oliver Dowden, what support will be available from the Government, to which Dowden replied: "The most important first step is to get sports going behind closed doors because that helps secure revenue, so we've got the Premier League and then the Championship.

"I would look first to sports to look after themselves and I'm meeting extensively with the EFL and Premiership and FA. But of course we'll continue to work on this."

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