“There’s no support for B Teams in our club"

The controversial issue recently returned to the agenda amid the debate on how to resolve the league’s financial crisis.

Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano recently expressed his regret that B Teams were not part of the league structure in England.

It then emerged that Football Association chairman Greg Clarke had floated proposals earlier this year that included the possibility of B Teams in the lower leagues.

Both claims provoked fury among many lower-league fans who are firmly against the idea of the country’s big clubs fielding B Teams in the pyramid.

Clibbens said he had not encountered any support inside Carlisle for the contentious idea.

“There’s no support for B Teams in our club,” he said.

“I don’t see any evidence of any support for it in this club.

“It’s so far away from anything we would support, we never discuss it.”

Clibbens was speaking in a lengthy interview published through United’s official channels.

The Blues asked fans to send in questions for the director as he addressed various aspects of football’s financial crisis amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The News & Star was among those who submitted questions, inviting United to rule out ever voting in favour of B Teams entering the league structure.

Clibbens, continuing on the subject, added: “In my time in the game, 11 years now, I can’t remember anybody ever supporting B Teams. Anybody. At all. Full stop. And certainly nobody is prepared to say it now.

“I think that’s an absolute non-starter.”

The idea has been increasingly controversial ever since the involvement since 2016 of Under-21 teams from big clubs in the EFL Trophy.

Carlisle have, in the past, voted in favour of their involvement in that competition – citing the financial benefits of the extra prize money and participation fees provided by the Premier League.

The EFL have always insisted the revamped Trophy was not the “thin end of the wedge” regarding the potential for B Teams to enter the pyramid.

Referring to the individuals who have come out in favour of B Teams recently, Clibbens added that “one person’s opinion should not get the alarm bells racing” because of the nature of football’s voting structure.

“A long as that’s there, it doesn’t matter what one individual says - they’ve got one vote,” he said.

“The risk is you give those individuals too many votes. Equally, the risk is it doesn’t matter how many votes they’ve got – if they’ve got you by throat, because you need their money, then you’re a slave anyway.

“So we don’t need to get too hung-up on voting. It’s just as important to protect independence, self-governance and self-determination.”

Clibbens said the league’s voting structure was a “great help” in terms of the B Teams question, but not in other respects.

He said that, in a League meeting last week, he had raised the question of how clubs would “resist” the “tough questions” that may come their way if more money was offered by the Premier League.

“There was no answer,” he said. “It was, ‘We’ll have to deal with that and get some safeguards in’.

“That immediately sets alarm bells racing in people who get it – and there’s enough of us who get it.

“That is why the game has operated with moderation. But at times when you have big issues, that moderation doesn’t help, because you need to take big decisions and you can’t get enough together to get the big decisions because there’s too much vested interests…and someone has to give something.”

Clibbens said he and United had agreed with the EFL’s decision last week to reject the Premier League’s latest £50m bail-out offer to Leagues One and Two.

He said: “My view was that we should reject the offer respectfully [because] we are approaching ‘armageddon’ and it isn’t enough – it only helps a portion of our league.”

He also said the EFL have “made it clear” to clubs that there will be a fund created to help clubs facing “dire emergencies”, with some lower-league clubs closer to severe financial peril than others at present.

He said that could potentially be used by clubs struggling to pay wages or facing winding-up petitions, for example, as a result of the loss of matchday income due to Covid-19.

“I think that will be available for clubs and no doubt will quickly leak away,” he said.

“After that, who knows? But it will buy some time.”