Can more be done to prevent financial issues in non-League?

Maitland’s suggestion comes in the aftermath of Weymouth’s ticket donation pledge to financially embattled Torquay United, the Terras gifting nearly £3,000 to the Gulls.

Weymouth themselves have suffered monetary purgatory in recent years, while another high-profile non-League club Rochdale are threatened with liquidation.

Elsewhere, Nuneaton Borough have folded, while in Dorset the withdrawal of competition by Hamworthy United’s first team has also sharpened focus on the sport’s support of lower-league clubs.

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While Maitland did not explicitly call on the Premier League to funnel money down to struggling clubs, he feels more can be done by football’s top brass to prevent financial hardship at grassroots level.

He told Echosport: “If you think about it, where do your Premier League clubs get their next set of homegrown players from that they have to have in their squads, or that they want to bring through their academy systems?

“They get them from grassroots football.

“If you don’t have a Weymouth, a Dorchester, a Portland or a Bridport where do those kids go and play football?

“They’re not all good enough to go straight into a Football League or Premier League academy, but some of them are further down.

“So, if you lose clubs, you actually lose the basis of how we produce players for this country.

“Eventually, that will have a knock-on effect at the very top level in terms of internationally.

“You can’t just keep bringing players from Europe or worldwide, otherwise our national team will suffer. So, there’s a much bigger picture that you have to try and protect the very bottom to support the very top.

“I’m not suggesting the Premier League are responsible for funding the clubs at the bottom. Why should they?

“They’ve got their own businesses to run and support, so they do what they have to do and you have to respect that.

“There needs to be some kind of way of trying to protect the bottom of the pyramid.

“I don’t know what the answers are but maybe there’s a bigger picture we’re all missing sometimes.

“You look at the Prem and the millions of pounds they’re overspending, points deductions, you just think: ‘How’s that being allowed to happen?’”

Part of the problem in sustaining clubs lower down the pecking order is the fact that they rarely make a profit.

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The issue is so widespread that the Weymouth chairman labelled football a “bottomless pit” in the pursuit of success on the pitch,

He said: “The challenge of running a business like a non-League football club is trying to increase revenue without going and relying on that sole person or group to fund you.

“There generally comes a point that that person either has had enough and steps away or, in a lot of cases, runs out of money.

“Football is a bottomless pit. You never get anything back and you can very easily go and spend a lot of money and not see anything for it.

“Football’s a strange business. You accept the fact that you’re not going to make any money, or very little, which goes against the whole concept of business. That’s the way it rolls.

“The next few years ahead, especially with the country in the position we’re in at the moment, it is a tough financial climate, it will be interesting to see in five years if all of these non-League clubs are still operating, or at the levels they’re at at the moment.

“You see phoenix clubs. Nuneaton went this season for slightly different reasons. Will they get back?”

While the Premier League itself is currently in a three-year cycle of spreading £1.5 billion in revenue among the football pyramid, increased running costs are placing a growing toll on clubs.

It means in future years the likes of Rochdale, Torquay and Nuneaton may not be alone in suffering financial problems that cut a little too close to the bone unless a sustainable solution can be found.