Newport County boss Tim Harris reckons having a team in the Football League will give Newport a higher profile than having city status.

The Exiles manager welcomed the "excellent" city status news but added that having a Football League team would force Newport into the public eye every Saturday afternoon when the team's result would be read out on television and radio.

Newport is now one of 23 cities out of 54 in England and Wales not to have a team in the English Nationwide Football League.

Harris said: "Everyone at the club is doing what we can but to be able to take Newport County onto the next stage and ultimately achieve Football League status, we need business people to add their financial backing.

"These days in football you need money to progress up the pyramid. Newport rugby club has had massive success since Tony Brown invested heavily in the team - and what we long for is someone to do a similar thing at Newport County.

"But we need to keep our feet on the ground and continue our steady progress and try to achieve Nationwide Conference status in the next few seasons."

Newport has a population of approximately 140,000,about 7,000 morer than Ipswich - a town with a Premiership football team.

To enter the Football League, County would need to be strengthened and the ground would need to be vastly improved or the club moved to a proper designated football stadium.