The manager of FC Oswestry Town has criticised the Football Association’s (FA) proposed decision to cut short the non-league football season in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nathan Leonard believes the decision, which was announced last week, has shown a lack of understanding for the non-league pyramid in English football.

Leonard’s men were second in the North West Counties Football League (NWCFL) Division One South table, and were four wins away from securing promotion to the Premier Division.

Although the Town boss realises football is not a priority under the current circumstances, he believes the decision has been made in haste.

“It’s frustrating,” Leonard said. “But obviously the most important thing at the moment is people’s health and getting rid of this virus.

“I feel like it’s a very hasty decision by the FA, and it feels as though it’s the easy way of doing things.

“They’ve shown a bit of a lack of understanding and respect for non-league football, I believe, in terms of null and voiding it as though it doesn’t matter. I don’t think they understand the amount of money that some teams will have put in, and the amount of work and hours that have gone into the season.

“For ourselves, promotion would mean being one step closer to where we want to be, but now it’s going to be very difficult to bring players in without the pull of a better league on our side. There will be a lot of knock-on effects. Saying that, we have a good group of lads who will hopefully stick together.”

The decision is yet to be ratified by the FA Council, and has seen more than 60 clubs write to the FA urging it to reconsider the decision.

Leonard added that he thinks a fairer conclusion to the season would have been to determine league positions using a points per game system.

He continued: “We’re just perhaps a little surprised at how quickly the FA have decided to do this.

“I believe they decided to use points per game to determine who was promoted and relegated during the restructure last season – which is what we heard would happen a couple of weeks ago.

“The season is about 80 per cent done, so I don’t think too many teams would have had complaints if it was decided like that. Some teams are always going to be upset I suppose, but I feel like people would have understood that method being used as being a fairer method.

“It would allow teams to be promoted and relegated – hats off to Vauxhall Motors, I feel for them, we’re gutted as well, but they had already been promoted and were going to go on and win the league too.

“It is disappointing when you think of the trips up to Manchester to play on a Tuesday night and things like that, it now all just feels like a waste of time and effort.

“I do feel like the FA have made themselves a bit alienated and out of touch to teams like ours.

“If it was after 10 or 15 games, you’d understand the season ending, but not when it’s this far in.”