Peter Varney has called for a radical overhaul of the English game to halt the ever-growing divide between the top four and the rest.Outgoing Charlton chief executive Varney believes that while Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool continue to dominate, clubs who drop out of the top flight will struggle financially and newly-promoted sides will not be able to compete.

"At the moment, it is without doubt the best (league) in the world, but the top four in the Premier League is the top four, and, because of the Champions League money, will always be the top four," Varney, who steps down at the end of the season, told BBC London 94.9.

"Clubs like ourselves who were established in the Premier League and then fall out face a horrendous situation. It's no surprise that if you look at bottom of the Championship at the moment, there are a lot of former established Premiership clubs like Southampton, Leicester and Coventry, who face the real prospect of going into League One.

"Derby made no attempt to compete this season and that will be an increasing feature of clubs that go up. If we had games against Manchester United in midweek and then Wigan the following weekend, we would now in the future play a weakened side against United because we would see the Wigan game as being more vital in the mini-league in which we are realistically competing.

"If you take all this together - the domination of the top four, promoted sides preparing not to properly compete and teams fielding weakened sides in cup competitions and against the major clubs - something is badly wrong with the way the financial structure works, and it needs to change."

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