'Why should Liverpool be allowed to win their league if we are can't win ours?'

The owner of non-league Worthing has hit out at the FA for denying his side promotion, declaring: "If we are not allowed to win our league, why should Liverpool be allowed to win theirs?"

English football's governing body last week took the controversial step of voiding all competitions from the third tier of the non-league pyramid down as they looked to conclude seasons early in response to the spread of coronavirus.

Worthing, who sat seven points clear at the top of the Isthmian Premier Division with just eight games to go, have been denied a golden opportunity to claim a second consecutive promotion - this time to the National League South - by the decision.

And that has left Dowell, one of the youngest football club owners in country at the age of just 27, devastated and angry.

“Why we haven’t been allowed to finish our season like the professional game may be allowed do I just don’t know,” he told Insideworldfootball.

“Whenever football is allowed to resume, we could have completed our league in four weeks.

“Everyone at the club has worked so hard. Money, time, effort. Getting promotion to National South would have been the highest the club’s ever been. It’s heartbreaking.

“Promotion was my dream and it’s been pulled from under us. I don’t understand how the National League have been allowed to possibly carry on. It’s not just affected us but everyone at our level.

"There should have been the same rule for all of us together. I don’t know why this has been allowed. Maybe because there’s more money involved higher up.

“If we are not allowed to win our league, why should Liverpool be allowed to win theirs? And if teams are promoted and relegated higher up the scale, why has a line been drawn at our level when money is even tighter, every penny counts and everyone is living on a shoestring?

“Our best players thought they were going to play at a higher level. Everything had fallen into place. It was like the perfect storm. Now we are going to have to start all over again.”

Read more

Why Belgian league title decision could be good news for Liverpool

'Windfall tax' threat for Premier League clubs as furlough anger rises

Cresswell: Football cannot rush back- I'm a father and I'm petrified

Walker: Forget about football return dates- health is more important

Premier League insist 'no quick answers' for English football return