THE Vanarama National League North has been suspended for two weeks with immediate effect meaning Guiseley's fixture against Alfreton Town this weekend is  postponed.

It comes as no surprise with clubs up in arms on Wednesday after discovering the £11 million, provided by the Winter Survival Package, would be in the form of loans instead of grants.

The National League put out this statement.

It read: "Following the review of the feedback from clubs in connection to the recent clubs meeting, a board meeting this morning decided to halt the participation in the North/South Divisions for a two-week period, effective immediately.

"As a result, tomorrow’s games are formally postponed."

This also means Guiseley's home games against Bradford (Park Avenue) on Saturday 30th January and Curzon Ashton on Tuesday 2nd February have been called off.

With the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) refusing to supply another grant, like the £10 million both them and the National Lottery provided to cover the first three months of the campaign, teams were left in a lose-lose situation.

Carry on the season and be riddled with debt for either the short-term or long-term, or end it now and leave supporters downbeat in these desperate times.

On Thursday night, a dozen of clubs - AFC Telford, Alfreton Town, Bradford (Park Avenue), Blyth Spartans, Curzon Ashton, Darlington, Farsley Celtic, Gateshead, Guiseley, Kettering Town, Southport and Spennymoor Town - banded together to call for an immediate suspension.

Their joint-statement said: "Whilst the integrity of the National League is important, we do not value this above the safety and wellbeing of our families, staff, volunteers or that of our heroic workers who are tackling this pandemic on the frontline.

"Furthermore, we have now been asked to consider loans against our clubs and we are quite simply not prepared to trade whilst insolvent.

"Therefore, we are calling for the immediate suspension of the league competition to allow the National League, FA and the DCMS time to find a solution that is acceptable to all.

"This suspension will allow us the time to lobby our respective MPs and carry out our own financial risk assessments against avoiding a Null and Void scenario.

"An inability to secure acceptable funding to cover COVID testing and the loss of fans will continue to render us insolvent and we are not prepared to prolong this beyond the 29th January 2021.

"We are duty bound as mere custodians of our clubs and will do everything we can to ensure we do not place any avoidable further financial burden now or in the future upon our community assets.

"Quite simply, 66 clubs would not have willingly participated in any footballing competition which initiated playing contracts, without assurances."