North Tamworth president Jodie Cooper has expressed concerns over the ability of smaller Group 4 clubs to withstand the Covid storm, as Group 4 chairman Ray McCoy labelled the current environment for clubs as "very daunting".
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With the Group 4 board meeting on Tuesday night to discuss the fate of the 2020 season, Cooper said he "feels for everyone" in the competition.
"I just hope all the clubs stay up there and continue through all this," he said.
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"We started to build a nice little competition ...The North Tamworth club does not want to see other clubs fold, and I feel some of them are maybe not in great financial shape."
The longtime president said "we'd hate to see any of the smaller clubs go down, because they're so valuable to the game: they're all part of the big picture."
"The sponsorships would be gone now," he added.
Cooper revealed that Norths were "sort of lucky" with regards to their ability to stay afloat, although they were not currently receiving any sponsorship dollars.
Doing so would be unfair to the club's sponsors, he said, adding that Norths "morally couldn't take money off them this year".
"It's not good for long-term sponsorship if we went ahead and took dollars off these people.
"We're in it for the long haul: we look after the people who are looking after us."
Group 4 revealed this week that McCoy would recommend to his board on Tuesday night that the 2020 season be abandoned because trying to stage it amid the pandemic would be "too hard".
He said clubs needed "good crowds" to make it a "viable business".
In a text message exchange with the Leader, he said: "With crowd numbers limited, bar & canteen facilities restricted & other strategies to be put in place ... it is very daunting."
He added: "As with our community, this isn't going away overnight, or in a short period of time, so we are preparing ourselves for further processes & procedures in 2021."
