No more FA Cup replays

I hate this high horse that people like you and the EFL clubs are on. You have as much of the blame as anyone for this as you keep kneecapping the bigs clubs meaning UEFA, FIFA and the national associations can keep exploiting them. None of the big clubs have been in favour of expanding the Champions League (and other European club compeitions) or the World Club Championships. They also weren't in favour of the confederations Nation Leagues or FIFA's proposed World Nations League (that will run alongside the confederations one), the expanded Euros (which UEFA have been talking about running every 2 years) or the expanded World Cup (as I've previous said they got that passed on the basis of 3 team groups meaning even with an extra knockout round it wouldn't require more matches or more time, which FIFA once they got the expansion agreed changed it to groups of 4, with the top 3 in most groups going to the knockout so we still have an extra knockout round but which now required about 10 days longer tournament and has seen the hosts have to find 2 extra stadiums). This season the Premier Leagues injuries have been ridiculous and that's because teams have no choice to have players play and train when in the red zone, squads just aren't big enough to support the current amount of football let alone the increase coming next year and the years following.

The only card that clubs have though is them withdrawing, that was a big reason behind the Super League as the upcoming Swiss model of the Champions League which adds more games still wasn't what was being proposed. What was proposed was 4 groups of 8 teams meaning 14 matches in the group. The top 4 go into knockouts (which guaranteed you CL football the next season), 5th place also guaranteed you CL football next year. 6th place would play 7th in another group, the winner would get CL football next year the user would be relegated to the Europa League. 8th would go into a playoff next season to get into the Europa League against the losers of the Champions League playoff (to get into the Champions League playoff you have to be national champions of a National that doesn't have a team in the Champions league, so for example if Bournemouth won the league in the first season of this new format they wouldn't get into the playoff for the CL, they would be in the playoff to enter the Conference league as England would have a team in the CL). While the Super League made UEFA scale back their plans to go with the Swiss model which still means more games but not as many its seen regulation put In place especially in England where the clubs have lost any ability to use such threats, we can be pretty sure that UEFA will announce their initial idea before the next TV deal is on the table now, after all the extra matches have seen UEFA get 20% more on the TV deal in the UK alone and the rise in the UK rights is one of the lowest in the world, the rumour is overall tv rights are bringing in almost 40% more and their sponsorship income is said to have risen around the same. Clubs meanwhile are getting a 9% rise.

So perhaps if EFL clubs and EFL fans stopped constantly putting the blame on the big clubs which enable the corrupt organisations to abuse the clubs whose names are the ones who generate them the money and to put players at risk we wouldn't be in this situation; maybe we wouldn't need things like scrapping replays in the FA Cup as the season would be more manageable. That's the problem with Football, especially English Football, its so tribal that there is no pulling in the same direction for the good of everyone and it allows all clubs to be taken advantage of because of that.



I would also add that actually in most cases replays actually cost more than they benefit. The initial game for most FA Cup ties doesn't sell out, a midweek replay certainly doesn't so you have a low gate receipt, that gets split with the other team and the other team now has travel expenses. There are situations where yes a replay can set a club up for years but especially in the early rounds its not so much the case

 

They generally don't. Midweek matches generally see lower attendances than midweek, especially as you go further down the pyramid because when even the actual fans are less likely to turn up midweek the casual fans that most clubs attract a certain amount of, especially for an FA cup match as they want to watch some live football on a Saturday afternoon certainly aren't. Unless its a local rivarly or they are lucky and their match gets TV coverage then unless there is a big difference between the two clubs to create the appeal the replays aren't great money spinners for either team

 

How often does that happen though these days? It's much harder for smaller clubs to battle to a draw or win at home as pitches are much better. Most replays end up being two clubs in the same division or at a push maybe a leagues difference. Two Premier League teams having to play a replay doesn't really benefit anyone. It would make more sense to make it easier for clubs to switch stadiums if they want to increase revenue. Maybe not switch it to the Away teams ground like used to happen but go and play in a bigger stadium near the home team, for example Halifax could play at Valley Parade, at Huddersfield or even goto Leeds. The chances of all the bigger local 3rd party stadiums being needed is unlikely, one of them will be playing away. And sure the home side would incur the expense of renting the stadium but the increased capacity would often cover that (and if it doesn't attract enough extra people then there is no need to move it) and most end up having the cost of some temp stands being put up anyway

 

That was Project Big Picture that United & Liverpool proposed just after Covid that suggested that. The EFL would have got a big lump sum up front and a much bigger cut of the PL TV money each year to offset it. It would also have seen the PL reduced to 18 teams as the initial plan of the PL was (The initial PL rules required all changes to get a 90% approval so when the first step came to reduce it from 22 to 20 they couldn't even get that voted through, it required bribing those who might go down with parachute payments and they could never get the 90% needed to get it to 18. And even with now requiring fewer teams to vote in favour reducing that number that required a bribe of more parachute payments, as have most changes to try and make the league better), removal of parachute payments but would have also changed how PL votes worked (Which people had an issue with but the problem currently with PL voting is the yo-yo clubs can basically scupper any vote on anything, they voted down the extra subs for example. Again basically to get anything past, even small things it usually means paying more parachute payments which actually makes the championship worse by giving these yoyo clubs way more resources, forcing others to have to overspend to compete)

The league cup is pretty pointless though. The PL clubs often play backup players until the Semi's so it would make more sense to perhaps basically scrap it and use it to make the FA trophy better and more appealing

 

Why are so many Football fans so dumb? Everton and Forest broke clear black and white rules, rules they admitted to (Everton got off with it in the first year on the understanding it was all Covid related and they had it under control, they were having to have transferred approved by the PL though before being able to submit the documentation and they actually mislead the PL in that to make it sound like it was under control when they were overspending in non-transfer fee area).

On the other hand City are denying their charges which aren't black and white. They are said to have inflated income, hidden sources of income and basically committed fraud. It's way more complex and it needs done correctly to prevent any situation where city get away with it on technicalities like they did with UEFA. If they get found guilty of the 115 charges though then they are in the same boat because no matter what the punishment is for that they would then fall foul of PSR because they have only passed it due to the fraud

 

You have chosen to ignore the point I was making. You help kneecap the power the big clubs have AGAINST the likes of UEFA and FIFA. As I said the big clubs don't want to be playing more matches in things like the Champions League and World Club Championships, especially when these extra games also often have nothing special about them, who really cares about United having to play Levida twice in a league format , or Liverpool playing the Qarabag twice in a league format. Maybe if it was a one match knockout it might mean more but the league stages of the Champions League are lets be honest largely pointless and forgettable, even when two top teams are in the same group it means very little as usually the big teams will just end first and second and qualify for the knockout. And we are just seeing more of these unappealing matches and UEFA will just keep making it worse. And the power to fight against it has been watered down even further, a big part because of non-perm clubs and their fans

 

Merson just made an interesting suggestion on Soccer Saturday. Rather than a random draw it should be seeded from the 3rd round. Then have the top seed play the bottom seed and so on. And adding to that Clinton Morrision then suggest the home team should be the higher seed. Combined smaller clubs get both that day out at a bigger club for their fans and the bigger payday that comes with it rather than a national league team getting a league 2 team and if they lose as they most likely will not actually getting anything out of it