Non-League Today, the weekly football newspaper, has published its final edition, sportsjournalists.co.uk understands.
The title’s five editorial staff were given their notice yesterday.
Published each Sunday, NLT was run by the Australian-based International Publishing Group, which also prints British Football Week and works with the Daily Express‘s international edition.
NLT was launched with £1 million investment in August 2007 as a direct competitor to the Non-League Paper, acquiring the rival’s website to offer online coverage through the week, but it failed to establish a strong enough foothold in terms of copy or advertising sales. The Non-League Paper sells around 40,000 copies each week.
The launch of the rival title saw the Non-League Paper‘s owner, David Emery, threatening legal action over the involvement in the project of his former news editor, David Watters.
At the time of the launch, Watters said: “I believe non-league football deserves its own paper. It should have 10 newspapers.
“I wanted to launch this paper because I thought I could do a better job than what the NLP is doing.”
Watters’ launch staff also included David Fletcher and one other former Non-League Paper staffer, plus two other reporters, two subs, a designer and production editor.
No one at IPG was available to comment when contacted by sportsjournalists.co.uk.
More on sports desk job cuts:
All Herald staff made redundant
Mair and Knight leave Telegraph; Buckley goes from Obs
Chadband among casualties in Derry Street
Express to cut more than 70 jobs
Publishers pull the plug on two football blogs
Brighton’s weekly sports paper to close
Click here to see a timeline of journalism job losses