Whitstable boss Marcel Nimani believes the lack of promotion potential at step five is killing the competition.

While all other levels of football from the EFL Championship down to step six of the non-league pyramid operate a promotion play-off system, the 16 step five leagues, including the Southern Counties East Premier Division, are more of a closed shop.

Nimani is leading the call for the FA to give step five football an equal opportunity to the rest, in a bid to keep the competition alive for as long as possible.

All other divisions above theirs - and even the one below - operate with automatic promotion places followed by at least a four-team promotion play-off.

In the SCEFL Premier Division the top spot is held by runaway leaders Erith & Belvedere and a gaggle of others are chasing second, which would earn them an away play-off against a side from the level above who finish either third or fourth bottom.

For teams like Whitstable, who are enjoying a decent campaign on the periphery, their promotion hopes hang by a thread with more than two months of the campaign yet to play.

Nimani said: “Step five deserves far more respect than it is getting.

“If you look at step four across our region and the top five [in the Isthmian South East], three of them are ones that came out of step five last year (Beckenham were Combined Counties League Premier South Division Champions while Sheppey United won the SCEFL Premier Division and Chatham Town went up as one of the best-placed teams on points per game).

“Step five at the moment is getting one spot and the second gets a play-off. Every other league gets a play-offs for the top five. I don’t understand why that isn’t offered at step five because it kills the season off.

“There are about six clubs [in the SCEFL Premier] with facilities and finances that are ready to compete in the league above, why not provide that opportunity? That is what sport and competition is all about. The defeat we had last Saturday could potentially write off our season.

“We are a club that are ready financially, facility-wise and fanbase-wise. We had a shaky start to the season, the transition with the management cost us a few games and it is a shame we don’t have that top-five opportunity to keep the season alive.

“Last season [runners-up] Chatham went up on a technicality (automatically promoted during a restructure) and any other season they wouldn’t have gone up because only one team usually progresses.

“Chatham were in treble points and how awful would it have been for them not to progress? Look at them now, same as Beckenham and Littlehampton, these are all sides who are doing really well in the league above.”

Nimani also feels it is having a negative effect on those teams at the bottom of step four, trying to spend their way out of trouble.

He said: “If you get relegated from step four it has become such a demoralising experience because clubs know once you get relegated it is so expensive to go up again.

“It would do some clubs good to go down, to re-establish themselves, build momentum and go up again, then what you won’t have is teams at the bottom of step four who are spending National League money to stay in the division because they know that once they go down they can’t go up again.

“Three teams should go down and three should go up every year, there is no reason that shouldn’t happen, that is the nature of competition. They are killing the raw nature of sport, which is competition.”

Whitstable were six games unbeaten before a surprise 3-1 loss at Lordswood on Saturday. They sit well-placed in the table but other sides have plenty of games in hand and second spot looks like a big ask.

“Poor finishing and poor defending sums it up,” said the manager, having named the same side which thumped Kennington 6-1 prior to that.

“Credit to the opposition, they used the terrain of the surface better than we did and were set correctly to win the game.

“Once you see 22 players play on the Lordswood pitch then you realise how small that pitch is, it didn’t help that you couldn’t make three passes without the ball getting stuck in the mud.

“We will hold ourselves to high standards and reflect on it and work on things we should have done better. That’s the beauty of a long season, you have to learn to play on all terrains, all conditions, that is what the league is all about.”

Whitstable host Sutton Athletic this Saturday and Nimani knows what to expect.

He said: “They will play better on our pitch than they will at their own home ground.

“They have some very good technical players, a very good short passing team, all over the pitch. If you give them the time and space on our pitch they will be a tremendous side. It will be a very good game and a battle of possession, I think.”