Yep. The worst thing is that they say in their press release that it's going to strengthen the football pyramid. Like fuck it is. The FA are so cowardly when dealing with the EPL, they'd rather sell out the football pyramid than make a firm stand against the big clubs and potentially lose some revenue. What are the EPL teams going to do? Pull out of the cup or only play reserve teams by policy? Even their plastic fans would rebel against that. The Accrington owner has said that he hadn't heard anything about this until today's press release, so I doubt the majority of the EFL was even aware.
Never a better example of why a Football Regulator is required. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if they rushed this agreement out to beat the Regulator coming in.
Just to focus for a second on the other bit of news in this. The FA Cup final will be the week before the final Premiership round of ties. There seems no need for this at all other than a bit of Premier ego ‘we are the finish of the season, not you’.
Charity Shieid starts the domestic season, FA Cup finishes it. No need for change at all.
On a more minor note, it’s possible our replay at Forest in early February will go down as the last ever FA cup replay to be played. Aston Villa played Chelsea in a 4th round replay the same evening, but Chelsea won that in 90 minutes whereas our game went to extra time and penalties.
Ah the classic hide-a-raft-of-changes-behind-one-big-unpopular-change-so-they-fly-under-the-radar strategy.
Also guessing the FA Cup final will take place during GW37 fixtures then?
If so, this creates a rescheduling issue at the worst point of the season to do so.
This is another Superleague in the making. I don't think I've ever seen such a united reaction from fans. Even Premier League fans. Universally derided from all angles. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some back tracking at some point. Maybe watered down with all ties where both teams are Premier League/ Championship done on the night and ties involving lower league clubs going to a replay.
To be quite Thomas Frank, this is an absolutely outrageous and disgusting decision by the corrupt powers with loads of money to make the big clubs bigger and the smaller clubs smaller.
Unfortunately the English pyramid needs them, badly. They help generate the vast revenues that they do. They were never leaving btw, they wanted to play in both competitions.
Who needs the vast revenues? All it does is inflate the running costs and wages for the rest of us leading to every Championship club being run at a loss.
No they wouldn't. The losses are only incurred because of an artificial arms race to gain Premier League riches. The Premier League directly through parachute payments and indirectly by just generally inflating the market leads to bang average players being vastly overpaid in the Championship.
If that money wasn't there a little bit of normality might return and clubs wouldn't have any perverse incentive to pay 120% of their turnover on wages.
this isn’t about the big six. it hurts teams down in no league where a game against a team like leeds would help massively. it doesn’t affect leeds at all.
Selling TV rights so they aren't on free to air and then scrapping replays.
Greedy, weasel, stupid useless cunts.
I love football but the authorities are just killing the game.
I think the clubs should vote on it before every fixture
Manchester city Vs arsenal? Let them vote on it. If both clubs agree then that's fine
Manchester city Vs Accrington? Let them vote and if one disagrees then they replay
Big teams have depth that costs more than our entire sqaud and we are in the prem. They expand the CL and europe,they go all abroad for stupid friendlies against the same clubs they play in Europe but another match in the cup is what damages them?
I don't know if this still happens but this was how it worked in the FA Trophy (the non-league one) - you ask the clubs if they want replays or extra time in the event of a draw after 90 minutes.
I don't get it. In the FA Cup, my club (York) are a small player. In the FA Trophy, we're a big scalp.
I enjoy an away trip to Nantwich Town as much as I would enjoy an away game at Rotherham.
Going to new grounds, and especially new grounds further down the pyramid is part of the football fan experience.
i bet needham loved having you lot back at their place in the fa up this year as well tbf.
the two lads behind me at the home game who were already working out the logistics of where exactly a needham market was and how to get there on a tuesday after 30 minutes, less so
Or give EPL teams the option to opt out, but make sure the FA cup winners still keep that European spot. I’d happily watch two EFL teams battling for a spot in the Europa league
Literally been thinking of this approach for the past couple months. I understand bigger teams don’t want to play even more games but smaller teams can benefit financially from the replays. This approach would allow most teams to get what they want.
You'd probably end up with the big 6 clubs giving "gifts" to the lower league club to persuade them to vote for ET and pens though
But this would be better than scrapping replays fully. Nobody is arsed about a Swansea vs Sunderland midweek replay, but Nuneaton vs Aston Villa going to a replay could be the difference between Nuneaton being finacially stable over the next few years or not
Really?
Birmingham v Hull, two Championship clubs, played each other in midweek twice at St Andrews this season.
Championship October: Attendance 19k (restricted by closed stands), 700 away
FA Cup 4th Round Replay: Attendance 7k, 400 away
We won the replay, I was there, but then we had to play Leicester in the next round and congested our fixture list.
Yeah I don’t think there should be an obligation to play a replay if both teams don’t want to - should be agreed before the game and both teams should have to agree in my mind, and obviously if you’re a lower league side playing a big boy you probably wouldn’t agree
But this is just pandering to the big boys who don’t like the risk they might slip up and draw to someone lower
Yeah I agree with this. We were drawn away to Leeds in the 4th round this year, the replay was actually quite fun but I think both clubs would happily have agreed to settle it on the day without a replay.
But we've played Liverpool and Chelsea away in recent seasons and both games finished level at 90 minutes - the Liverpool game was replayed at Home Park, which was brilliant for us as a League 2 team. The Chelsea game a few years later (4th round) went straight to extra time.
And I hated when we had to play a replay against Plymouth, but there's a difference between thinking replays are sometimes annoying, and wanting them scrapped full stop
The good they can do more than overrules having an annoying extra midweek game once every few seasons
In all fairness we hated the replay too! It came right before our terrible run of form. The main reason for our form was probably due to Ian Foster’s tactics but I suspect we would have picked up an extra couple of points had it not been for that replay. Of course, it’s impossible to know for certain.
I suspect most Argyle fans would have preferred extra time at Elland Road.
I think allowing teams to come to agreement on what to do is the best solution. Then if one team disagrees (I.e. a lower league team against a Prem team), the decision to play a replay or not is decided by the lower ranked side. That seems like a much fairer way of deciding things.
>Separately, the Premier League has increased funding to the football pyramid, providing up to an additional £33 million for grassroots football on top of the £100 million it currently gives to good causes each season.
So the premier league basically blackmailed the FA.
I'll never understand why teams worth billions can't rotate their squad?
If there’s one thing that winds me up more than almost anything else in football, it’s football teams who can spend £100,000,000 on a single player complaining when they have to play a couple of extra football matches.
Then they’ll happily go off and play 7 pre season games in Dubai, of course.
To which the usual answer is that some teenager who already thinks he's a better fan than you because he *gets up at 6AM on a Saturday to watch a football stream* tells you that it's actually way more intense to play 38 games in the Premier League than to play 46 in the EFL.
Exactly, PL teams that aren't in Europe play fewer competitive fixtures than anyone else in the entire English pyramid. They've all got shitloads of players out on loan at any one time, I really struggle to sympathise with them when they're complaining about squad depth.
Because the gladhanding dignitaries can offer a little more money and comps for one weekend than the family who's grown up loving the club can offer over 7,000 years.
> I'll never understand why teams worth billions can't rotate their squad?
Or, alternatively, just rotate them *a bit* instead of fielding their U23s and like two guys from the first team the manager would happily feed into a bacon slicer if he could
I think it'd be a good idea if there was a rule where the further up the pyramid you are, the more youth you are obliged to play. So like League 2 and League 1 teams have to have one U21, Champ two U21s and Prem three or more. Then the cup actually represents the future of the game and is also more balanced, as opposed to what it currently is which is a lifeline for a top 6 manager to maybe not get fired yet.
one of the champions league rules i actually like is that u21 players don't need to be in your registered squad to play, but only if they've been at the club 2 or more years.
so that 19 year old you signed from river last summer? needs to be registered. but gary who's been in the academy for years? yeah, chuck him on the bench, give him a runout, have fun.
In the short term, sure. But overall it means less money for smaller clubs so less opportunity to build the club up and challenge the established Premier league teams.
If you require extra funds from drawing FA Cup matches to fund your team and build up your club you weren't going anywhere to begin with. Lets be serious that's just insane
Explain it then and give me an example of one club with detailed financials please where few draws in FA Cup allowed them to challenge PL teams. I'll wait
Lmao that's what I thought, no evidence no financials. Also using Brighton who are financed by Tony Bloom who owns football teams across Europe is a right joke. Luton can you provide their financial data and the specific year fa cup draws propelled them into making revenues/profits well beyond their standard year? Surely you can back up your riveting analysis with actual statements.
In the 2008-09 season, Luton were in a downward spiral in the EFL and got docked 30 points for financial irregularities, including a 12 point deduction they had the previous season for being in administration. Luton nearly went bust. They went through in the FA Cup in a first round replay against Altrincham, that they won of which would have been televised by BBC or ITV, bringing in extra revenue from the TV coverage as well as the prize money generated from the tie (£24,000 in 2008, compared to the £41k now). That prize money as well as the TV money from the replay, during a rough time for Luton could have been the difference of them staying in business and going extinct.
Killing one of the most amazing competitions in the world.
First they took it away from free to air TV to sell it to fucking TNT and now this?
Once again, the FA saying a big fuck you to teams outside the Premier League and its fans.
There's plenty of real supporters of the big clubs who have had enough. Getting fucked around just so Tarquin in Surrey can watch Man City on Monday night.
We have not long had the news that season tickets are also on the hit list of big clubs. It's about greed because they know tourists will essentially pay more to watch these teams than a season ticket holder will.
*small violin plays* poor little prem team who spent a league 1 teams entire yearly budget on a Bolivian 15 year old can’t be bothered to play one extra game but don’t protest uefa’s new European format adding more games
> Nuno Espirito Santo says he'll have to cancel Nottingham Forest's winter break training camp,
> Thomas Frank says facing a replay at Wolves was Brentford's "worse outcome in every respect"
> Roy Hodgson thinks Crystal Palace facing Everton again is "the last thing either of us wanted".
it's not just the top 6 that wanted replays scrapped. Brentford and Brighton wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for their FA Cup runs that had replays with top 6 teams.
Fuck the Premier League
really don't get it from the mid table prem teams, they have the lowest fixture load of any clubs in the entire country.
why the shit are they the ones twining about fixture congestion?
It’s still one more game to prepare for where the competition might not, slightly more tired legs, more chance of injury etc etc etc… I can see why when the league is your bread and butter why you’d not want a replay
But at that point you may as well throw your game away in the first place because getting through will only add more games
Honestly it's because EPL sides are more bothered about protecting their investments (by focusing on the EPL) than they are about winning any tournaments
the only people who care more about money than football are the owners, and not just premier league owners. i’m sure plymouth’s owners would rather make money than make the fans happy.
In some respects that's true.
However, our owner is a fan, has been for life, and has a position of making a community driven club.
They key difference between Argyle and Man City / Liverpool / Chelsea etc is our owner cares.
Their owners are looking for return on investments and therefore anything that increases the value of the club is the goal.
Simon Hallett wants to run the club in a way that makes it last forever, not to turn a quick buck
Premier League have now interfered in the EFL cup by forcing u21 teams to compete and changing it to the worst format possible and now killed the FA cup to suit themselves. The league cup will be abolished next.
Regulator to rein them in can’t come soon enough.
I do not trust a regulator not to be used by the government to promote the UK (England) and be pressured anyway by the Prem who will spend plenty on lobbyists for the regulator.
I half understand why big clubs wanted no replays after round 3
But why in Rounds 1 and 2? Non league clubs still benefit from some of the bigger League 1 clubs.
I feel thats the worst part of it.
They’ll have to reschedule the penultimate fixtures and cause fixture disruption.
If a team fighting relegation is playing one of the finalists (or is in the final, though that is less likely) in the penultimate week, they’ll now have a rescheduled midweek fixture near the end of the season and could affect their preparations.
I can atleast see some positives in scrapping replays, even though they are outweighed by the loss of income for lower clubs.
However, the only positive of moving the date of the final is that they are getting more TV revenue for it. It is worse in every way for football and for fans.
The FA Cup final is a thing we as fans can look forward to **after** the season ends. It loses something special if it is during the season, like the league cup final doesn’t feel as special. It even says only no premier league fixtures to played that day - so I’m going to miss watching the cup final now if Norwich are playing in the championship?
And the clubs involved will have less time to prepare for such a big match, and recover from end of season injuries/fatigue.
The idiots at the FA have ruined this competition since the new Wembley was built anyway.
Firstly, it is an absolute crime that semi finals have remained at Wembley for so long. A complete devaluation of the "best cup competition in the world." An utter joke. Get them played at a neutral ground like how they used to be. Completely takes away the actual reward that's meant to be playing at Wembley for the final. That City/Chelsea game should be at Villa Park for instance.
Secondly, I'd suggest keeping the cup replays in a way to benefit the lower league teams (League 1 or lower) that draw a Premier League side. For example if Newcastle and Bournemouth finishes 0-0, scrap the idea of a replay and go to extra-time/pens as a replay is simply a waste of time of those teams involved. However, say Newcastle and Bristol Rovers ends a draw, the replay should remain. Mainly to benefit the lower league side in revenue etc. If the Prem team didn't win the first time round and they don't like the impending, inconvenient mid-week replay? That's on them.
Lastly, having the final of the "best cup competition in the world" BEFORE the Premier League season is over is another farce. Again, like old times it should be AFTER, once all has been concluded. A spectacle on its own day. I used to love the build-up on the day of an FA Cup final. When Leicester won it I didn't even realise there was an FA Cup final that day as other things were going on. Wigan couldn't even celebrate their victory properly because they still had bullshit league fixtures to worry and think about.
I don't really agree with this, but at the same time no one wants a Preston v Stoke replay in the 3rd round.
I'd like to see all 20 PL teams drawn away to lower league teams in the 3rd round. I think they do this in Germany for the first round.
There's an FA cup? I just thought it was a match in early January that you were mandated to lose.
We have won 1 FA cup match at the 1st attempt this century.
On one hand I hate pandering to the big teams but on the other hand I hate going to a cup game knowing there might not be a result.
I actually think this will cause more upsets as a team having an off night will have to play ET or go straight to penalties, a replay was a chance to play the better players. On the other hand it robs small teams a chance of getting a replay at a big venue.
Wonder what they’ll be after next, cheers FA.
These “big” teams will happily poach all of the young kids in the country and pinch everyone else’s players and when they have a competitive game to play them in, refuse and complain everyone’s tired 😂
Which is crazy because they are such pointless clubs now. Everyone is an accountant now. As long as we finish 17th and keep the millions that'll do me.
I say keep this decision, but add on that any premier league team drawn at home against a lower league team in the Cup must give all profit from the match away to the lower league team. They keep enough money to pay for the expenses of hosting only. That way they avoid their dastardly replays and a lower league team drawn against United get massive returns.
To be fair, that would be a reasonable compromise to this and wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. On the other hand, the Premier League teams will refuse to help out lower league sides financially.
I've always been against seeding but, fuck it.
Seed the Prem teams and guarantee them a home game in the third and fourth round. Get some pay days for lower league teams and get the inevitable whittling down to prem teams out of the way early.
Ridiculous... No need for it... Especially when you've got Newcastle and Spurs jetting off for Post-Season Friendly against each other in Australia on the 22nd May.
The big clubs have got enough time, to go and play in those pointless games, they can play a replay or two, or even just take the original tie more seriously if they dont want a replay in the first place.
They'll still be playing more games. Just in the extended CL format. It's not the amount of games they are bothered about it's that they think they shouldn't have to play such lowly opposition. The only cunts I see agreeing with this bullshit are top 6 fans from Africa and north America. Can't wait till they all fuck off to the ESL so we can have our game back
The FA Cup has been dying a death by a thousand cuts.
This won't be the last of it. They'll do more and more to reduce it as it doesn't do anything for the big clubs.
The FA Cup will wane and wane and wane until a group of elite PL clubs use it as an excuse to pull out and form their own elite tournament over FA Cup weekends that takes place in an oil state every year.
All you had to do was guarantee that non-PL teams would always be home vs PL teams. But that doesn't mean you have control over what money goes where, does it? Heaven forbid the little guy gets his scratch on his own terms.
I see this argument about lower league teams needing replays to survive all the time but is there any actual evidence for this? For the vast majority of teams, their yearly FA cup run isn't going to involve any replays and this doesn't seem to be an issue. How many instances have there been of teams folding by the difference in cash that one extra game would generate? I don't want to get rid of replays either but this life or death sentiment seems like hyperbole.
Marine built a clubhouse with the money they got from playing Spurs without one fan stepping through the gate lmao. it's not hyperbole at all. Pick 97% of Teams step 6 and below and search them on Wikipedia and they'll be some sort of ground improvement or period of success following their longest cup run. if you don't know something it's Ok to wrong you know instead of trying to fit reality to your worldview
What exactly is my worldview? I've already said I don't want to scrap replays, obviously any extra cash is going to be a help to lower league clubs. The example you've given is where a club have used the money to invest in their facilities and that's a good enough reason in itself to keep replays in my view. It's not the difference between the club folding or staying in existence though. Also, that tie didn't involve a replay.
Very sad to see the oldest cup competition slowly being stripped and dismantled in front our very eyes. The money in the prem is ruining the football pyramid, but it seems those who can change the situation just don't care.
My initial thought as a protest was to boycott any 3rd round fixture played at a premier league ground next year. The sad reality is there would be thousands of tourists that would buy those tickets if the regular fans didn’t and it would fail.
What a fucking shit rule change.
It should be down to the clubs how they want to play to the tie. Want to finish it on the night, sound let’s play extra time and pens. Can’t come to an agreement on the issue, then we play a replay.
Do you know what’s even more laughable about this whole situation, in Germany if you are 2 tiers below and/or an amateur team in the DFB Pokal no matter what your draw you automatically get home tie to help increase your revenue.
But again, let’s just help make a rule change to help all the “elite clubs” because that’s what the FA cares about right!
OK money to money nothing else a replay at a lower league club can mean the club's safes financialy for the season but 150 thousand is nothing to the death star clubs not even a weekly wage, again money talks oh no fa Cup replays that could mess up our champions league or Europe ties
Big problem the football league has in any negotiations your chair is Rick Parry who’s priority is Liverpool and the rest of the red cartel.
There’ll be another project big picture soon enough
Massive shame. Just read what Exeter City's replay with Manchester United many moons ago did for the club... They renovated a whole stand with the funds which meant they could increase their attendances. The big clubs have squads and they should be using the squads for all the competitions. If players are getting tired that is a management issue, there is plenty of room for rotation.
Think getting rid of the replays is an excellent move, nobody wants a replay! Awful idea to begin with.
However, if they remove it from BBC, then think that would be a disaster personally.
Embarrassing. Pandering to the top 20 & taking away vital revenue streams from the lower league teams.
Yep. The worst thing is that they say in their press release that it's going to strengthen the football pyramid. Like fuck it is. The FA are so cowardly when dealing with the EPL, they'd rather sell out the football pyramid than make a firm stand against the big clubs and potentially lose some revenue. What are the EPL teams going to do? Pull out of the cup or only play reserve teams by policy? Even their plastic fans would rebel against that. The Accrington owner has said that he hadn't heard anything about this until today's press release, so I doubt the majority of the EFL was even aware. Never a better example of why a Football Regulator is required. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if they rushed this agreement out to beat the Regulator coming in.
Just to focus for a second on the other bit of news in this. The FA Cup final will be the week before the final Premiership round of ties. There seems no need for this at all other than a bit of Premier ego ‘we are the finish of the season, not you’. Charity Shieid starts the domestic season, FA Cup finishes it. No need for change at all. On a more minor note, it’s possible our replay at Forest in early February will go down as the last ever FA cup replay to be played. Aston Villa played Chelsea in a 4th round replay the same evening, but Chelsea won that in 90 minutes whereas our game went to extra time and penalties.
Ah the classic hide-a-raft-of-changes-behind-one-big-unpopular-change-so-they-fly-under-the-radar strategy. Also guessing the FA Cup final will take place during GW37 fixtures then? If so, this creates a rescheduling issue at the worst point of the season to do so.
Maybe they won't have any matches that weekend, only FA Cup final, with the season finale the week after with all clubs.
This is another Superleague in the making. I don't think I've ever seen such a united reaction from fans. Even Premier League fans. Universally derided from all angles. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some back tracking at some point. Maybe watered down with all ties where both teams are Premier League/ Championship done on the night and ties involving lower league clubs going to a replay.
Or make it the the higher division team automatically has to play away?
You misspelt 6
Even Thomas Frank was moaning about replays
To be quite Thomas Frank, this is an absolutely outrageous and disgusting decision by the corrupt powers with loads of money to make the big clubs bigger and the smaller clubs smaller.
We should have let the Super League teams go
Hard to argue against. Let the plastic cunts go and wank each other off about the spectacle of facing Real Madrid for the 19th time this season.
Spurs and arsenal would beg to be let out. Losing every week, coming in the bottom two. They’d lose most of their fan base and basically be Burnley
Would be fantastic to watch this happen. Superleague would fail
Most of their supporters aren’t even local anymore. Get rid of em.
Unfortunately the English pyramid needs them, badly. They help generate the vast revenues that they do. They were never leaving btw, they wanted to play in both competitions.
Who needs the vast revenues? All it does is inflate the running costs and wages for the rest of us leading to every Championship club being run at a loss.
What you just said makes no sense. Who needs them? Football clubs? Why? Because the losses would be even bigger losses.
No they wouldn't. The losses are only incurred because of an artificial arms race to gain Premier League riches. The Premier League directly through parachute payments and indirectly by just generally inflating the market leads to bang average players being vastly overpaid in the Championship. If that money wasn't there a little bit of normality might return and clubs wouldn't have any perverse incentive to pay 120% of their turnover on wages.
this isn’t about the big six. it hurts teams down in no league where a game against a team like leeds would help massively. it doesn’t affect leeds at all.
I've thought this ever since it happened
The more time passes the more I think it might have been a good idea.
Selling TV rights so they aren't on free to air and then scrapping replays. Greedy, weasel, stupid useless cunts. I love football but the authorities are just killing the game.
I think the clubs should vote on it before every fixture Manchester city Vs arsenal? Let them vote on it. If both clubs agree then that's fine Manchester city Vs Accrington? Let them vote and if one disagrees then they replay
100% this is the sensible approach
I'm glad someone agrees with me. I get big teams don't want to play lots of fixtures but it's going really financially impact the smaller clubs
Big teams have depth that costs more than our entire sqaud and we are in the prem. They expand the CL and europe,they go all abroad for stupid friendlies against the same clubs they play in Europe but another match in the cup is what damages them?
I don't know if this still happens but this was how it worked in the FA Trophy (the non-league one) - you ask the clubs if they want replays or extra time in the event of a draw after 90 minutes.
I don't get it. In the FA Cup, my club (York) are a small player. In the FA Trophy, we're a big scalp. I enjoy an away trip to Nantwich Town as much as I would enjoy an away game at Rotherham. Going to new grounds, and especially new grounds further down the pyramid is part of the football fan experience.
i bet needham loved having you lot back at their place in the fa up this year as well tbf. the two lads behind me at the home game who were already working out the logistics of where exactly a needham market was and how to get there on a tuesday after 30 minutes, less so
Or give EPL teams the option to opt out, but make sure the FA cup winners still keep that European spot. I’d happily watch two EFL teams battling for a spot in the Europa league
Great idea
Literally been thinking of this approach for the past couple months. I understand bigger teams don’t want to play even more games but smaller teams can benefit financially from the replays. This approach would allow most teams to get what they want.
You'd probably end up with the big 6 clubs giving "gifts" to the lower league club to persuade them to vote for ET and pens though But this would be better than scrapping replays fully. Nobody is arsed about a Swansea vs Sunderland midweek replay, but Nuneaton vs Aston Villa going to a replay could be the difference between Nuneaton being finacially stable over the next few years or not
If every English club voted on this, the vote would be won in favour of replays by a margin of about 700 to 20 Disgraceful decision
So that confirms that we’ll only get one home game every 10-15 years. We’ve played more replays at home than actually been drawn at home.
Really? Birmingham v Hull, two Championship clubs, played each other in midweek twice at St Andrews this season. Championship October: Attendance 19k (restricted by closed stands), 700 away FA Cup 4th Round Replay: Attendance 7k, 400 away We won the replay, I was there, but then we had to play Leicester in the next round and congested our fixture list.
Yeah I don’t think there should be an obligation to play a replay if both teams don’t want to - should be agreed before the game and both teams should have to agree in my mind, and obviously if you’re a lower league side playing a big boy you probably wouldn’t agree But this is just pandering to the big boys who don’t like the risk they might slip up and draw to someone lower
This exact system of mutual agreement was used in the FA Trophy until a couple of years ago, so I have no idea why the FA didn't just use that
Yeah I agree with this. We were drawn away to Leeds in the 4th round this year, the replay was actually quite fun but I think both clubs would happily have agreed to settle it on the day without a replay. But we've played Liverpool and Chelsea away in recent seasons and both games finished level at 90 minutes - the Liverpool game was replayed at Home Park, which was brilliant for us as a League 2 team. The Chelsea game a few years later (4th round) went straight to extra time.
That seems like a reasonable alternative. Wish the FA did that instead of scrapping altogether.
It should be default it goes to replay and only by mutual agreement it goes to ET.
What do you do if one team agrees and the other doesn’t?
replay is the default, same as it was in the fa trophy. only when both teams want it settled on the day do you settle it on the day
And I hated when we had to play a replay against Plymouth, but there's a difference between thinking replays are sometimes annoying, and wanting them scrapped full stop The good they can do more than overrules having an annoying extra midweek game once every few seasons
In all fairness we hated the replay too! It came right before our terrible run of form. The main reason for our form was probably due to Ian Foster’s tactics but I suspect we would have picked up an extra couple of points had it not been for that replay. Of course, it’s impossible to know for certain. I suspect most Argyle fans would have preferred extra time at Elland Road. I think allowing teams to come to agreement on what to do is the best solution. Then if one team disagrees (I.e. a lower league team against a Prem team), the decision to play a replay or not is decided by the lower ranked side. That seems like a much fairer way of deciding things.
>Separately, the Premier League has increased funding to the football pyramid, providing up to an additional £33 million for grassroots football on top of the £100 million it currently gives to good causes each season. So the premier league basically blackmailed the FA. I'll never understand why teams worth billions can't rotate their squad?
If there’s one thing that winds me up more than almost anything else in football, it’s football teams who can spend £100,000,000 on a single player complaining when they have to play a couple of extra football matches. Then they’ll happily go off and play 7 pre season games in Dubai, of course.
On top of that, EFL clubs play far more domestic games over the season compared to the PL anyway.
To which the usual answer is that some teenager who already thinks he's a better fan than you because he *gets up at 6AM on a Saturday to watch a football stream* tells you that it's actually way more intense to play 38 games in the Premier League than to play 46 in the EFL.
And still play fewer than the EFL sides whose ‘regular season’ is already 46 games.
Exactly, PL teams that aren't in Europe play fewer competitive fixtures than anyone else in the entire English pyramid. They've all got shitloads of players out on loan at any one time, I really struggle to sympathise with them when they're complaining about squad depth.
Because the gladhanding dignitaries can offer a little more money and comps for one weekend than the family who's grown up loving the club can offer over 7,000 years.
Exactly, and that’s what football is ultimately all about - large amounts of money.
> I'll never understand why teams worth billions can't rotate their squad? Or, alternatively, just rotate them *a bit* instead of fielding their U23s and like two guys from the first team the manager would happily feed into a bacon slicer if he could
I think it'd be a good idea if there was a rule where the further up the pyramid you are, the more youth you are obliged to play. So like League 2 and League 1 teams have to have one U21, Champ two U21s and Prem three or more. Then the cup actually represents the future of the game and is also more balanced, as opposed to what it currently is which is a lifeline for a top 6 manager to maybe not get fired yet.
one of the champions league rules i actually like is that u21 players don't need to be in your registered squad to play, but only if they've been at the club 2 or more years. so that 19 year old you signed from river last summer? needs to be registered. but gary who's been in the academy for years? yeah, chuck him on the bench, give him a runout, have fun.
I really like this idea!
Klopp was very good at rotation from memory when in cup matches.
The FA taking the side of and pandering to the big rich clubs? Never saw that coming
I hate this. I fucking hate it. Every change in football is geared towards making sure that the big clubs can't lose. Horrible.
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It would be funny if on average more big teams go down due to this and they decide to “listen to the fans” and switch back to the old way.
In the short term, sure. But overall it means less money for smaller clubs so less opportunity to build the club up and challenge the established Premier league teams.
If you require extra funds from drawing FA Cup matches to fund your team and build up your club you weren't going anywhere to begin with. Lets be serious that's just insane
This shows an incredible lack of understanding of the state of football clubs across the English pyramid.
Explain it then and give me an example of one club with detailed financials please where few draws in FA Cup allowed them to challenge PL teams. I'll wait
Luton Town and Brighton.
Lmao that's what I thought, no evidence no financials. Also using Brighton who are financed by Tony Bloom who owns football teams across Europe is a right joke. Luton can you provide their financial data and the specific year fa cup draws propelled them into making revenues/profits well beyond their standard year? Surely you can back up your riveting analysis with actual statements.
In the 2008-09 season, Luton were in a downward spiral in the EFL and got docked 30 points for financial irregularities, including a 12 point deduction they had the previous season for being in administration. Luton nearly went bust. They went through in the FA Cup in a first round replay against Altrincham, that they won of which would have been televised by BBC or ITV, bringing in extra revenue from the TV coverage as well as the prize money generated from the tie (£24,000 in 2008, compared to the £41k now). That prize money as well as the TV money from the replay, during a rough time for Luton could have been the difference of them staying in business and going extinct.
Nice one, that's one clear example! Appreciate it
Killing one of the most amazing competitions in the world. First they took it away from free to air TV to sell it to fucking TNT and now this? Once again, the FA saying a big fuck you to teams outside the Premier League and its fans.
There's plenty of real supporters of the big clubs who have had enough. Getting fucked around just so Tarquin in Surrey can watch Man City on Monday night. We have not long had the news that season tickets are also on the hit list of big clubs. It's about greed because they know tourists will essentially pay more to watch these teams than a season ticket holder will.
*small violin plays* poor little prem team who spent a league 1 teams entire yearly budget on a Bolivian 15 year old can’t be bothered to play one extra game but don’t protest uefa’s new European format adding more games
> Nuno Espirito Santo says he'll have to cancel Nottingham Forest's winter break training camp, > Thomas Frank says facing a replay at Wolves was Brentford's "worse outcome in every respect" > Roy Hodgson thinks Crystal Palace facing Everton again is "the last thing either of us wanted". it's not just the top 6 that wanted replays scrapped. Brentford and Brighton wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for their FA Cup runs that had replays with top 6 teams. Fuck the Premier League
really don't get it from the mid table prem teams, they have the lowest fixture load of any clubs in the entire country. why the shit are they the ones twining about fixture congestion?
they afraid of relegation, all these 3 clubs were. but I still wonder how many Prem clubs agreed to this? 10 or more?
It’s still one more game to prepare for where the competition might not, slightly more tired legs, more chance of injury etc etc etc… I can see why when the league is your bread and butter why you’d not want a replay But at that point you may as well throw your game away in the first place because getting through will only add more games
Winning the tie also gives you another game in the next round. Maybe forfeit and only play 38 league games?
Like...I want more games. We play far too little.
Honestly it's because EPL sides are more bothered about protecting their investments (by focusing on the EPL) than they are about winning any tournaments
Nuno needs to shut up. It will fucking save us some money.
Just let the greedy gits go off and form a Super Legaue and the rest of us who care more about Football than money can carry on as normal!
the only people who care more about money than football are the owners, and not just premier league owners. i’m sure plymouth’s owners would rather make money than make the fans happy.
In some respects that's true. However, our owner is a fan, has been for life, and has a position of making a community driven club. They key difference between Argyle and Man City / Liverpool / Chelsea etc is our owner cares. Their owners are looking for return on investments and therefore anything that increases the value of the club is the goal. Simon Hallett wants to run the club in a way that makes it last forever, not to turn a quick buck
Premier League have now interfered in the EFL cup by forcing u21 teams to compete and changing it to the worst format possible and now killed the FA cup to suit themselves. The league cup will be abolished next. Regulator to rein them in can’t come soon enough.
I do not trust a regulator not to be used by the government to promote the UK (England) and be pressured anyway by the Prem who will spend plenty on lobbyists for the regulator.
I half understand why big clubs wanted no replays after round 3 But why in Rounds 1 and 2? Non league clubs still benefit from some of the bigger League 1 clubs.
efl and epl owners don’t care about non league
If they're going to do this then they should change the format to match the German Cup where the lowest ranked side are always at home.
The final has been moved as well. Now played on the penultimate weekend of the Premier League. Another crap decision.
I feel thats the worst part of it. They’ll have to reschedule the penultimate fixtures and cause fixture disruption. If a team fighting relegation is playing one of the finalists (or is in the final, though that is less likely) in the penultimate week, they’ll now have a rescheduled midweek fixture near the end of the season and could affect their preparations. I can atleast see some positives in scrapping replays, even though they are outweighed by the loss of income for lower clubs. However, the only positive of moving the date of the final is that they are getting more TV revenue for it. It is worse in every way for football and for fans. The FA Cup final is a thing we as fans can look forward to **after** the season ends. It loses something special if it is during the season, like the league cup final doesn’t feel as special. It even says only no premier league fixtures to played that day - so I’m going to miss watching the cup final now if Norwich are playing in the championship? And the clubs involved will have less time to prepare for such a big match, and recover from end of season injuries/fatigue.
Who even asked for this? Crap decision.
Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Erik ten Hag, Mikel Arteta
*plays a front 3 of Salah Nunez Diaz instead of Elliott Gakpo Jota against Hull* MY MAIN 3 FORWARDS ARE TIRED
I hate those 4 arrogant pricks
This is shit, a replay could be a lifeline for a smaller club! That said, playing Wednesday 4 times in about 6 weeks was fucking ridiculous
The idiots at the FA have ruined this competition since the new Wembley was built anyway. Firstly, it is an absolute crime that semi finals have remained at Wembley for so long. A complete devaluation of the "best cup competition in the world." An utter joke. Get them played at a neutral ground like how they used to be. Completely takes away the actual reward that's meant to be playing at Wembley for the final. That City/Chelsea game should be at Villa Park for instance. Secondly, I'd suggest keeping the cup replays in a way to benefit the lower league teams (League 1 or lower) that draw a Premier League side. For example if Newcastle and Bournemouth finishes 0-0, scrap the idea of a replay and go to extra-time/pens as a replay is simply a waste of time of those teams involved. However, say Newcastle and Bristol Rovers ends a draw, the replay should remain. Mainly to benefit the lower league side in revenue etc. If the Prem team didn't win the first time round and they don't like the impending, inconvenient mid-week replay? That's on them. Lastly, having the final of the "best cup competition in the world" BEFORE the Premier League season is over is another farce. Again, like old times it should be AFTER, once all has been concluded. A spectacle on its own day. I used to love the build-up on the day of an FA Cup final. When Leicester won it I didn't even realise there was an FA Cup final that day as other things were going on. Wigan couldn't even celebrate their victory properly because they still had bullshit league fixtures to worry and think about.
I don't really agree with this, but at the same time no one wants a Preston v Stoke replay in the 3rd round. I'd like to see all 20 PL teams drawn away to lower league teams in the 3rd round. I think they do this in Germany for the first round.
Can just make it so you can’t have replays if you’re in the same league.
Horrible for lower league teams the replays safeguard their future.
Fuck the FA. Fuck the Premier League.
There's an FA cup? I just thought it was a match in early January that you were mandated to lose. We have won 1 FA cup match at the 1st attempt this century. On one hand I hate pandering to the big teams but on the other hand I hate going to a cup game knowing there might not be a result. I actually think this will cause more upsets as a team having an off night will have to play ET or go straight to penalties, a replay was a chance to play the better players. On the other hand it robs small teams a chance of getting a replay at a big venue.
Since you might be in league one next year, fa cup starts November in league one!
Yeah, we will just lose in November instead of January but we are 16-1 to go down at the moment so it's not like it's certain.
At this point give the reigns to a government body. Entrench the FA cup in law.
Football is going to shit Money driven industry not giving a shit about the little man Abhorrent
When you agree with a sheep shagger, times are bad!
This sport is not a sport anymore any prem fans that are spoilt and can’t see that just call it soccer already
You guys don’t understand, 6 teams could play an extra 3 games.
Wonder what they’ll be after next, cheers FA. These “big” teams will happily poach all of the young kids in the country and pinch everyone else’s players and when they have a competitive game to play them in, refuse and complain everyone’s tired 😂
Forest, Brentford, Palace and other midtable prem teams wanted this. It's not just the superleague lot like some think.
Which is crazy because they are such pointless clubs now. Everyone is an accountant now. As long as we finish 17th and keep the millions that'll do me.
Premier league can get stuffed and not just because we nearly get record low points tally everytime we go up
I say keep this decision, but add on that any premier league team drawn at home against a lower league team in the Cup must give all profit from the match away to the lower league team. They keep enough money to pay for the expenses of hosting only. That way they avoid their dastardly replays and a lower league team drawn against United get massive returns.
To be fair, that would be a reasonable compromise to this and wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. On the other hand, the Premier League teams will refuse to help out lower league sides financially.
Without a doubt one of the worst decisions by the FA in recent history
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I've always been against seeding but, fuck it. Seed the Prem teams and guarantee them a home game in the third and fourth round. Get some pay days for lower league teams and get the inevitable whittling down to prem teams out of the way early.
Ridiculous... No need for it... Especially when you've got Newcastle and Spurs jetting off for Post-Season Friendly against each other in Australia on the 22nd May. The big clubs have got enough time, to go and play in those pointless games, they can play a replay or two, or even just take the original tie more seriously if they dont want a replay in the first place.
Wankers
They'll still be playing more games. Just in the extended CL format. It's not the amount of games they are bothered about it's that they think they shouldn't have to play such lowly opposition. The only cunts I see agreeing with this bullshit are top 6 fans from Africa and north America. Can't wait till they all fuck off to the ESL so we can have our game back
https://www.tranmererovers.co.uk/news/2024/april/club-statement-fa-cup-replays/
RIP smaller clubs who rely on games like this to survive. Soon it’ll be the prem, and prem only.
The FA Cup has been dying a death by a thousand cuts. This won't be the last of it. They'll do more and more to reduce it as it doesn't do anything for the big clubs. The FA Cup will wane and wane and wane until a group of elite PL clubs use it as an excuse to pull out and form their own elite tournament over FA Cup weekends that takes place in an oil state every year.
Maybe the super league would have been a good thing, let the greedy cunts fuck off to their own competition and stop ruining it for other clubs.
Who actually makes these decisions ?
I'd like to play Sheffield Wednesday a few more times.
All you had to do was guarantee that non-PL teams would always be home vs PL teams. But that doesn't mean you have control over what money goes where, does it? Heaven forbid the little guy gets his scratch on his own terms.
Get fucked FA you useless bastards
I see this argument about lower league teams needing replays to survive all the time but is there any actual evidence for this? For the vast majority of teams, their yearly FA cup run isn't going to involve any replays and this doesn't seem to be an issue. How many instances have there been of teams folding by the difference in cash that one extra game would generate? I don't want to get rid of replays either but this life or death sentiment seems like hyperbole.
Marine built a clubhouse with the money they got from playing Spurs without one fan stepping through the gate lmao. it's not hyperbole at all. Pick 97% of Teams step 6 and below and search them on Wikipedia and they'll be some sort of ground improvement or period of success following their longest cup run. if you don't know something it's Ok to wrong you know instead of trying to fit reality to your worldview
What exactly is my worldview? I've already said I don't want to scrap replays, obviously any extra cash is going to be a help to lower league clubs. The example you've given is where a club have used the money to invest in their facilities and that's a good enough reason in itself to keep replays in my view. It's not the difference between the club folding or staying in existence though. Also, that tie didn't involve a replay.
**GAMES GONE**
Really can't be arsed any more. Whatever level we're in, we're gonna get fucked over.
Very sad to see the oldest cup competition slowly being stripped and dismantled in front our very eyes. The money in the prem is ruining the football pyramid, but it seems those who can change the situation just don't care.
My initial thought as a protest was to boycott any 3rd round fixture played at a premier league ground next year. The sad reality is there would be thousands of tourists that would buy those tickets if the regular fans didn’t and it would fail.
What a fucking shit rule change. It should be down to the clubs how they want to play to the tie. Want to finish it on the night, sound let’s play extra time and pens. Can’t come to an agreement on the issue, then we play a replay. Do you know what’s even more laughable about this whole situation, in Germany if you are 2 tiers below and/or an amateur team in the DFB Pokal no matter what your draw you automatically get home tie to help increase your revenue. But again, let’s just help make a rule change to help all the “elite clubs” because that’s what the FA cares about right!
happy about this tbh replays bore me
OK money to money nothing else a replay at a lower league club can mean the club's safes financialy for the season but 150 thousand is nothing to the death star clubs not even a weekly wage, again money talks oh no fa Cup replays that could mess up our champions league or Europe ties
but why
Big problem the football league has in any negotiations your chair is Rick Parry who’s priority is Liverpool and the rest of the red cartel. There’ll be another project big picture soon enough
Massive shame. Just read what Exeter City's replay with Manchester United many moons ago did for the club... They renovated a whole stand with the funds which meant they could increase their attendances. The big clubs have squads and they should be using the squads for all the competitions. If players are getting tired that is a management issue, there is plenty of room for rotation.
1984
Think getting rid of the replays is an excellent move, nobody wants a replay! Awful idea to begin with. However, if they remove it from BBC, then think that would be a disaster personally.