No more FA Cup replays

In one way it makes sense, more often than not a good competetive initial match results in an easy walkover in the replay and with the increase in quality of pitches across the board (well apart from at valley parade lol) trying to battle hard to get a bigger team to your place where the conditions might help you isn't really as helpful.

However it does remove that ability to get 2 cuts of gate receipts and maybe two sets of TV money which can actually set some clubs up for multiple seasons. You also lose situations like the 98/99 FA Cup Semi (although we had already lost that at SF stage anyway) between United and Arsenal where the first game was dull and the ET would have also most likely been dull but that replay was amazing, maybe one of the best FA Cup matches with Keane's red, Phil Neville giving away the penalty, Schmeichel saving it and then Giggs wonder goal

 

TBF while the article doesn't mention it there was talk when discussion opened that there would be more money for grassroots coming from the PL. So individual clubs might not benefit in the way they did if they could get a replay before but all the grass roots will benefit collectively. The only problem might be how much has the EFL and especially Championship been able to carve out from the 'grassroots' fund for themselves like always seems to happen

 

You wonder if they should change the rules as to where the tie should be played.?

Sometimes the FA (or EFL) cup is the only opportunity most supporters of smaller clubs will get to see their team play a Premier league team.

For instance if City were to draw @SimonW ’s Manchester United, and the game was scheduled to be played at Old Trafford, then the maximum number of tickets available would be around 9,211. Clearly we have far more Season Ticket holders than that, so some would miss out (like the Chelsea game).

One way to give something to the smaller team supporters would be to seed the draw system. So that the team which at the time of the draw, that was lower on the League ladder, were awarded a home tie. Consequently all the home Season Ticket holders would get a chance to get a ticket.

Alternatively allocate 25% of the seats to the away team.

 

Old Trafford holds around 75,000. They would have to realign the segregation and so would probably not have a full capacity. So not 20,000.

The whole point of floating ideas is to promote discussion, rather than having a narrow view.

The actual percentage of the seats could be reduced, but it would have to be a fixed formula for evenhandedness.

I certainly think we could take far more than 9,211 which is the current allocation.

 

Personally if they have and the moneys going to National league and below instead then I'm fine with that. While its a shame L1 & L2 clubs will lose out you just have to look at the way the EFL handles other deals where L1/2 gets the short end of the stick just to help fund Championship clubs who on the whole are some of the financially worst run clubs in the country, they rely on current PL handouts, getting a season or 2 of PL money and parachute payments. Maybe it will get L1/2 clubs to stand up and demand a bigger slice while demanding the championship clubs are run better

 

You say that but the big clubs weren't the ones who were pushing for the changes made to various non-european competitions.

The big clubs were against UEFA's planned expansion of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference Leagues which is a big reason why the Super League was muted (UEFA's initial proposal would see way more games than current European competitions and more than the Super league proposed. Even the compromise has more games). They are being forced to by UEFA and the FA's. The Big clubs weren't in favour of the expansion of the Club World Cup, they again are being forced into it by FIFA, UEFA and the FA's And lets look at the World Cup, clubs weren't happy with the expansion of that, they were appeased by the fact they were told it would be groups of 3 which meant even with an extra knockout round no-one would play more matches than before and it would last the same time, then after getting the OK to expand it they have gone back on it, its now groups of 4, has an extra knockout round and lasts over an extra week (And the US, Canada and Mexico now have to find an extra two stadiums over their initial plan)

It's the pandering to the Governing bodies as much as anyone