Welcome back.

It's a long international break, which makes the next few weeks an important stretch for the clubs we cover — the ones who keep playing while the top of the game pauses.

We were at Hanwell Town on Saturday in the sunshine for their FA Trophy tie against Enfield Town. Further down this edition there's another ground visit, and for once the accounts were as interesting as the burger.

Manchester City Reportedly Found Guilty: How Far Could They Fall Down the pyramid?

Reuters reported on Friday that The Athletic and The Times have both reported an independent commission finding against Manchester City on 114 of 115 charges. The Premier League has published nothing, no sanction has been announced and City are expected to appeal.

But the reporting raises a question the rulebook answers less clearly than most of the coverage assumes. A points deduction could send City to the Championship through the ordinary mechanism. Expulsion would not place them anywhere at all — because the Championship is not the Premier League's to allocate, and the EFL's rules give an expelled club no automatic right of entry.

£1.5bn+, 72 Clubs and a New Regulator

The Premier League has put a ten-year funding proposal worth more than £1.5bn to the EFL, with an additional £81m proposed for 2026/27 and the annual increase reaching £163m by 2028/29. The EFL wants £207m annually.

What has changed since the talks collapsed in 2024 is not the money. It's that the Independent Football Regulator now has a statutory backstop — and that backstop reaches the National League, even though the cash proposal stops at League Two.

Why Is a US Sandwich Chain Sponsoring the EFL Trophy?

Jersey Mike's is planning 400 restaurants across the UK and Ireland and has reportedly agreed a deal worth around £1m a season to put its name on a competition built around League One and League Two.

The clue is in who it replaced. Vertu Motors run a national network of car dealerships; Jersey Mike's is building a national network of restaurants. Both bought the same 48 local football markets.

The £1.65m and 50-Year Deal Behind Boreham Wood's EFL Ambition

Hertsmere has approved up to £1.65m of infrastructure funding for Meadow Park and agreed the principle of replacing two leases with one running 50 years.

The redevelopment forced the lease question, and the council took the opportunity to remove an RPI-linked rent its own officers think could become disproportionate to the land. What nobody has published is the rent Boreham Wood will pay.

The Pyramid is a commercial sponsor of Boreham Wood FC.

The Pyramid Partners With Peterborough United

In case you missed the special edition: we've agreed a two-year partnership with Peterborough United, with a pitchside board and LED advertising at the Weston Homes Stadium. It went live for the Doncaster game on 19 September.

It takes our own advertising into the EFL for the first time, and means The Pyramid now buys at three levels of the pyramid — tiers three, five and nine.

Fisher — 8.3/10

Tuesday night at St Paul's in Rotherhithe, 238 in the ground and nine goals. The burger was the second-best the Index has eaten and the cheapest, and the whole evening came to £15 — less than Tottenham's admission alone.

The board carries the most generous meal deal we've found anywhere: The Sharpie, any three burgers plus three onion rings, £6. The three burgers alone cost £10.50.

Eight Years of Profit: How Fisher FC Make Tier-Nine Football Pay

Then we read the accounts. Fisher turned over £80,444 last year and made £10,480 — their eighth consecutive profitable year.

The tea bar out-earned the gate. First-team player costs were £6,075. Nine supporters put £2,845 into the playing budget. There is no wealthy shareholder behind any of it, because Fisher are owned by their members through a Community Benefit Society — and file their accounts with the FCA rather than Companies House.

That's the roundup for this week.

If you've got a club whose numbers don't add up, a takeover clause worth unpacking, or a non-league burger that needs investigating, hit reply and let me know.

Arthur Lewis
The Pyramid