Freebie Friday: Does the FA competition prize money reflect fairly?

A fair price across the pyramid is needed before clubs withdraw entry

Welcome to Freebie Friday and to those of you who have taken a free subscription in the last few weeks, this is the regular piece every week that you all see the full article of and a taster of what is behind the paywall, details of the Xmas and New Year offer coming at the end of this blog.

I’ve had a couple of thoughts of what to write for the piece this week, I’ve stuck with what I had originally planned and the other will appear behind the paywall in the next week or so.

So, to today’s topic and it’s the prize money on offer for clubs in all the FA competitions that end up with a day out at Wembley in May/June for the finalists.

I’ve long felt the FA are out of touch with the game at all levels and when you look at the prize fund for all three competitions I don’t think it’s in sync anymore with what it should reflect.

Now I would not expect the two competitions for non-league to be mirroring the FA Cup nor coming close to those figures but what I do expect is an understanding that the paltry amounts on offer for winning a game in these rounds are really an insult.

I’ll applaud the fact they managed to secure sponsorship from Isuzu after the wonderful long relationship with Buildbase came to an end, and I also appreciate the hit businesses took after the pandemic years too, but we’ve instead seen the level of money coming in drop instead of at least staying on parity with what it was before.

What a lot of people won’t realise is that the money received for winning the tie is quickly swallowed up and in some cases clubs run at a loss, I’ll explain why.

Take the Emirates FA Cup, granted a bigger name with a bigger financial base. Clubs will get a cheque for losing right up until the fourth qualifying round, that amount by then is £3,125, some having banked money for winning through the previous rounds.

We’ll take the FA Trophy firstly in the opening qualifying round and then in the fourth round and the reason I’ve chosen the latter is the draw is no longer regional which the competition enjoys in the rounds previous. Winning that first round tie gets you £1500 whilst the loser takes £400, that might sound alright if you win, but what some will not know is in that amount the away side are allowed to claim travel expenses which of course doesn’t happen in a league game, so if you are the home side and lose, £400 is highly unlikely to cover that expense nor added to it extra expenses the officials can also claim in terms of mileage and I believe match fees as well, but don’t quote me exactly on the last part!

While the prize money in the fourth round is £5250 taking out the regional comfort zone increases the cost for the home side, unless they’re looking at an increased attendance level due to their opponents, losing and only receiving £1500 potentially turns the game into a loss making exercise.

The FA Vase payments must make you wonder why you pay to enter in the first place. Why are Step 5 and 6 clubs the poor relations of the game when they are just as important within the pyramid as any other club?

Quite frankly the prize money on offer is poor, feel free to disagree with me, you can obtain the figures for all the competitions from www.thefa.com. I mean £550 for winning an opening round game goes nowhere, those expenses again from the travelling club will swallow up most if not all of that and I’ve based that on the home side winning, lose and £160 is a paltry amount that makes it worthless to enter, something clubs at this very moment can ill afford to be a part of.

Gate receipts I don’t know if you are aware are split like this, 45% each between the two clubs and 10% to the FA for ‘organisational purposes’ so why can’t they use that money to cover off the expenses away clubs are allowed to claim and leave the prize money as an actual win-win?

The FA get that money from every single tie in all three competitions, possibly baring the final although it wouldn’t surprise me even if they gained something from those as well. We know non-league clubs need every penny they can get their hands on, especially those much lower down and the FA seem to be doing nothing extra to help their member clubs who pay an affiliation fee to them every year and are still in my opinion ‘getting shafted’.

I wonder how long it will be for clubs to actually decline to enter the Vase despite its prestige and reward of a Wembley final, weighing up that the further they go in the competition the more expense they can incur and protect themselves instead by giving it a miss.

I’ve seen first-hand how winning the FA Vase can propel clubs higher up and increase the interest and attendance at clubs, it’s a wonderful tool but I feel it could be in danger of disappearing into itself if the FA aren’t careful, but maybe it’s time to show they do care for the game at all levels and not there for keeping silent, it’s a time of goodwill to all men and women, time to extend that from Lancaster Gate.

As always would love to hear your views, are the pay levels correct? Will the competitions soon become devoid of all teams wanting to compete? Is there another way to help out clubs suffering from making these losses? Hit the comment button below….

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