diff --git a/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py b/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
index 2334399b5..f39bc05f3 100644
--- a/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
+++ b/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
@@ -118,6 +118,29 @@ def make_entity_linker(
     save_activations (bool): save model activations in Doc when annotating.
     """
 
+    if not model.attrs.get("include_span_maker", False):
+        try:
+            from spacy_legacy.components.entity_linker import EntityLinker_v1
+        except:
+            raise ImportError(
+                """In order to use v1 of the EntityLinker, you must use
+                    spacy-legacy >=XXX."""
+            )
+            # TODO REMOVE this is to trigger a test build
+        # The only difference in arguments here is that use_gold_ents and threshold aren't available.
+        return EntityLinker_v1(
+            nlp.vocab,
+            model,
+            name,
+            labels_discard=labels_discard,
+            n_sents=n_sents,
+            incl_prior=incl_prior,
+            incl_context=incl_context,
+            entity_vector_length=entity_vector_length,
+            get_candidates=get_candidates,
+            overwrite=overwrite,
+            scorer=scorer,
+        )
     return EntityLinker(
         nlp.vocab,
         model,