FOOTBALL faces huge changes when the lockdown comes to an end and the country returns to normal.

Aldershot chairman Shahid Azeem says the shutdown has had an effect on every club, whatever standard they play in.

The Shots, in a period of transition under manager Danny Searle, had an inconsistent season, flirting with the relegation zone in the National League before putting together a run of results to haul themselves clear.

When the season ended, they were not in danger of the drop, but too far behind the pace setters to feature in the play-off picture.

Azeem said: “At every level there has been a different impact.

“I understand all the talk with the Premier League with the finances involved and with their sponsorship.

“For clubs like us in the National League, the problem is having players on the pay roll with no income coming in.

“When you’ve had a lockdown for many weeks, it’s a disaster. That needed to be stopped and to let clubs know what was happening.

“The authorities had a tough decision to make when they decided whether the season should end, and if so how it should end.

“They could have had a scenario of working out the average points per game, but a lot can happen in the last ten games of a season. That’s 30 points to play for, and remember what happened when Manchester City won the league with a goal in the last minute of their last game.

“They are never going to please everybody – whatever they decide there will be some winners and some losers.

“Take the 68 clubs in the National League. You take a decision that will satisfy 70 per cent of them, as it has no bearing on promotion or relegation, then in phase two ask clubs what they want, whether that’s promotion and relegation or play-offs, or a null and void season.

“The Football League hasn’t made its mind up yet what its doing, and we normally have promotion spots available into League 2. So we’re caught in the middle of it.

“From the National League point of view, I fully supported the decision to stop the season.

“Whatever decisions our league make, it shouldn’t impact us. If you take the formula of average points per game, we’re still clear of relegation – unless they decide to make it alphabetical, and clubs beginning with A will go down!”

As they are not a rich club, Aldershot’s directors regularly donate money to help – but Azeem feels other clubs will not be so fortunate.

“There are a lot of clubs in our league who are underpinned by owners’ businesses and those businesses are suffering – and that means the clubs will suffer.

“We are lucky in that we have a fantastic bunch of sponsors and advertisers and while we know they are going through a challenging time, we haven’t had any negative feedback that they will be withdrawing their support.

“They just want to see when we come out of this, how can we move forward.”

Azeem believes football will be back by the autumn. He says: “I think we will be back in September in some form. It’s a major industry and it does a lot for the country and how people are feeling – although I suppose that depends on what team you support!”