Friday Freebie: FA Cup losing it's direction?
New proposals could send the competition to a lower level
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A few days ago a newspaper article, however credible or not, stated the much loved FA Cup is due for a major facelift the season following this one. Not surprisingly it brought criticism from many including me.
Us of a certain age or generation can remember back to when Cup Final day was pride of place in the football calendar at the end of the season. Now it’s almost just another fixture to fit in between moans and groans from demanding managers.
The proposals come from not the FA who run the competition, but you’ve guessed it, the Premier League. Why they are controlling the selling of TV rights for a competition they compete in but do not run is beyond me, more evidence the game is beyond the FA.
There are a number of conditions the PL want met before they agree new overseas TV deals and I’ll outline these below.
No more replays full stop. Whilst they’ve abolished them from the 5th round and we saw over the early 2020’s the extra games removed from the Trophy and the Vase; the FA Cup still provides the biggest financial incentive for clubs lower down the pyramid. If they remove those then I feel there should be a pre-draw, bigger sides drawn out alternately home and away then the smaller clubs drawn with better chance and not against each other from similar divisions.
Early rounds to be played midweek. It’s unclear if that means that’s from the 1st Round or they’re talking about from the very beginning of the competition? My guess is the former, even then why are we moving a Saturday cup competition to midweek, shall we call it the Floodlit Cup instead?
Leagues then needing to schedule games elsewhere at the whim of 20 clubs who in most cases don’t even take it seriously, nor do they need the prize money on offer either.
They also want to move the final to the penultimate Saturday of the season moving the PL games to the Sunday, fixture moving that puts the final in the realms of the season, not at the end where everyone used to tune into. Whilst the fixture congestion there is highly unlikely to affect non-league sides it’s the moving into a spot where it’s not in the spotlight as much as it was.
The trade-off for these proposals is the PL then giving the FA more money to fund grassroots football, but why don’t they just do that anyway? This isn’t a reason for that to happen, it’s more messing around with the game that is detaching more and more fans every year from the top level.
All the above does in my opinion is make the call for the independent regulator even louder. Many believe the PL run the game and have done so pretty much since its inception, this would only reinforce that view should the FA bow down and agree to the new proposals.
For me it would be the last nail in the coffin for the so called governing body of football, if they carry on the way they are the next move will be clubs dropping out of the competition completely to avoid ‘burn out’ for their superstars, despite having travelled half way across the world for a pre-season tournament, it’s not all about the money you know or maybe it is.
What do you think to the proposals? Should the FA be protecting the integrity of the competition? Will the regulator when they arrive be too late to change too much? Let me know in the comments below.
Almost be better for the big eight to go to Europe league so other clubs could actually get a look in?
Think it will have changed too much by the time a ‘regulator’ arrives and we will have lost certain things forever. Would have liked to have thought the FA would have resisted more, such a shame.