CHIPPENHAM Town chairman Neil Blackmore is calling for a vote of no confidence in National League chairman Brian Barwick.

Several clubs, including Chippenham, have been fined thousands of pounds and given a suspended points penalty by an independent panel over the past week for failing to fulfil fixtures due to a lack of available funds.

Blackmore said Chippenham made their reasons for not playing clear from the start, but the panel implemented the sanction – despite the season being null and void – due to allegedly not giving just cause behind their refusal to fulfil fixtures.

The Bluebirds chair said his club was never given a reason for being put in front of an independent panel until the day of the meeting – something he said amounts to ambush.

Therefore, a proposal for a National League EAGM, made by Maidstone United and seconded by Dorking Wanderers, has asked all 66 clubs in the National League to submit their views this week – with Blackmore calling the situation clubs have been backed into as ‘farcical’.

Blackmore said all sides were told at the beginning of the current campaign by the National League that they would receive grant funding in order to start the season, however, that promise failed to materialise just before Christmas as clubs were told there would be no more money available for the rest of the season.

Chippenham paid £40,000 of their own money to fulfil fixtures throughout January before clearly stating to the league they would not be able to carry on without additional funding.

Low-interest loans were offered, but this was met with anger and disappointment from member outfits, with the Bluebirds chairman calling the idea of accepting these loans as “ludicrous”.

Now in a situation where the majority of National League South and North clubs are being given sizeable fines to add to their troubles, Blackmore revealed he – like many others – will be appealing to the Football Association and hopes to see the National League board resign.

He said: “Because it’s so many clubs, I think the FA have got to take a serious look at this. It’s so serious, and the way this whole affair has been mishandled by the National League, I think the FA has to take a serious look at our individual cases, but also at how the National League is run. That’s why all of the member clubs are calling for an EAGM.

“If a club says: “we don’t have the finances to play” and then the league turns around and fines them an astronomical amount, how does that help?! I don’t get the logic behind that at all.”