Maidstone United will meet with Fulham officials to secure a settlement after Chris Smalling made his Whites debut in the last game of the season against Everton.

The Stones have a gentleman’s agreement with Fulham that allowed Smalling to join the Premier League club for free with a settlement to be sorted once the promising central defender had made his first appearance for the club. United have yet to hear anything despite Smalling’s debut last month – in the closing stages of our 2-0 defeat by Everton – something which may be related to Les Reed, the man who brokered the deal, having left the club.

Maidstone chairman Paul Bowden-Brown said:

We have not heard anything yet. We did the deal with Les Reed, the youth coach, at the time and he is no longer at the club. However, a possible youth partnership was mentioned and we are going to follow that up in the next two weeks.