Three up, three down has become one of those arguments that sounds simple because, on the surface, it is.
The National League is seemingly stronger than it has ever been. Clubs come up now and often do not merely survive in League Two, they compete. Lincoln City, Stockport County, Wrexham, Notts County, Chesterfield, and others have all shown that the best sides in the fifth tier are not out of place in the EFL.
That, though, is only half the argument. The question is not simply whether the best National League clubs are good enough. Many of them clearly are. The real question is whether the system beneath them is ready for an extra relegation place from League Two, and whether the National League is currently regulated, structured and balanced enough to justify being treated as just another EFL division. At the moment, it is not.
Promotion Has To Mean More Than First-Team Strength
The biggest weakness in the three-up argument is that it often treats promotion and relegation as a purely footballing matter. If York City, Rochdale, Oldham, Southend or Forest Green are better than the bottom end of League Two, then the solution seems obvious: let more of them in. However, being an EFL club is not just about having 11 good players and a few strong substitutes. It comes with wider obligations, costs and responsibilities.
EFL clubs are expected to operate as community institutions. They often carry academies, charitable trusts, women’s teams, stronger governance structures and broader staffing. Those things cost money. They also matter. If League Two clubs are told that one more bad season could send them into a league where those structures become harder to fund, the rational response is obvious. They will protect the first team first. Academy spending becomes vulnerable. Community work becomes vulnerable. Long-term planning becomes vulnerable.
That is not scaremongering. Lincoln chairman Clive Nates has already raised the academy issue, pointing out that EFL clubs lose academy funding two years after relegation and also lose compensation rights for academy players if they are not quickly promoted back. That is a serious structural problem, not a small administrative complaint.
There is also the financial regulation issue. League One and League Two clubs operate under the EFL’s Salary Cost Management Protocol, which limits spending on player wages as a proportion of turnover. The EFL confirmed changes to financial controls in December 2024, showing that the bottom two divisions are already operating within a formal framework. The National League cannot demand EFL-style access while operating under a different financial culture. Three up cannot sensibly happen until the National League is brought into line with comparable financial controls.
That does not mean ambition should be punished. It means ambition should be sustainable. Owner money, equity, loans, related-party sponsorship and creative accounting all matter. If clubs are allowed to spend heavily in the National League to chase promotion, then enter the EFL after one great season, the risk is not just competitive imbalance. The risk is clubs reshaping themselves around one owner’s appetite and then collapsing when that appetite disappears.
Wrexham are the obvious modern example of how outside investment can transform a club, but they are also the exception, not the model for everyone else. Their rise has been extraordinary, but it has also distorted expectations. Not every club can turn celebrity ownership, global media attention and commercial growth into a sustainable climb. For every fairytale, there is a warning somewhere else in the pyramid.
The other issue is the National League itself. The real gap may no longer be between the National League and League Two. It may be between the top of the National League and the rest of non-league. That matters. If the top six or seven are effectively EFL-ready, while many clubs below are still operating with very different resources, then three up does not solve the pyramid. It may simply accelerate a two-tier National League.
That raises an awkward question for the campaign: if three up is an essential matter of sporting integrity, why does that principle stop at the National League? Why not three up from National League North and South? If the answer is that the gap from Step 2 to Step 1 is too great, then the National League is already accepting the same logic the EFL is using. It is saying structure, finance and readiness matter.
There is also a contradiction in the play-off argument. If the complaint is that elite National League clubs are trapped despite being clearly better than others, then why does the division still allow a team finishing seventh to win promotion? Since 2015-16, only three of the ten second-place finishers had won the play-offs.
None of this is to say the current system is perfect. It is not. Two promotion places from a 24-team professional division is harsh. The standard at the top is clearly high. The fact that Rochdale could collect 106 points and still need a play-off final shows how brutal the current route can be.
However, changing the system because a few strong clubs are frustrated is not enough. Relegation from League Two into the National League is not the same as relegation from League One to League Two. The latter is movement within one 72-club EFL structure. The former is movement between different worlds, with different funding, different regulations, different obligations and different risks. That distinction matters.
The sensible position is not “never three up”. It is “not yet”. Three up can make sense if the National League adopts equivalent financial regulation, if academy protection is resolved, if parachute and solidarity arrangements are clear, if ground and infrastructure requirements are properly aligned, and if the National League addresses the imbalance below its own top division. Until then, the campaign asks for the reward without accepting enough of the responsibility.
The National League is no longer old-school non-league in the way many remember it. In many respects, it is already League Three. But if it wants to be treated like League Three, it has to look, regulate and protect clubs like League Three. Only then does three up, three down become reform rather than risk.
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