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The Dying of the FA Cup


The Fish
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I'd say that a set number of points should be applied to the following season, and only if you win the cup. Fortunate cup runs could see a side face 3 lower league clubs and be suddenly 6pts better off in the league, where the clubs around them have met Chelsea (or whomever) and are punished for bad fortune.

 

Luck of the draw, innit.

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Only downside to that is that teams like West Ham will assume that they won't get anywhere and will continue to treat is as happened today. But I do think it would raise the level of commitment from the bigger teams, which would be something.

A 5 point bonus if they went down would be a good head start on their promotion competitors, if they stayed up it's a nice cushion so they can concentrate on getting away from the relegation battle before it begins.

 

For sides in the middle of the league it can aim for the Europa

The Europa side can aim for Champions League

Champions league for the title

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The problem with a points bonus for the winner is that is it really enough of an incentive? Would we have taken yesterday's game much more seriously when we only had a 3% chance of winning the competition anyway?

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The problem with a points bonus for the winner is that is it really enough of an incentive? Would we have taken yesterday's game much more seriously when we only had a 3% chance of winning the competition anyway?

 

Ashley would love a points bonus, if a new player would cost £3m or getting a win in the cup gets him the points he wants?

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Wouldn't that lead to the bigger clubs simply dismissing it all together?

 

 

Perhaps. I was only thinking of how it could equalise squad sizes. To be totally honest I think that the FA cup will never be the same as what it was simply because the game is not what it was. A Champions League place or extra points toward the league could slightly rejuvenate it, however ultimately the final incentive of those two perks is money. Unless there was a real fiscal bonus to winning the FA cup then we will continue to see what we have seen in many premier league clubs this weekend. A fucking grim reality if you ask me and indicative of where football is going.

Edited by ADP
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I think awarding points for cup performances is fairly absurd - that's what the league is for. In addition how would it be administered? What about lower league teams?

 

For incentives the only thing most clubs care about is the money - which like it or not is part of 'the magic' of the cup. Obviously for premier league teams it's not enough but a small club taking a share of the gates at Old Trafford has always been a big aspect of the cup.

 

I don't think Portsmouth or Wigan fans think it's lost it's magic. We're just such a non entity in cup competitions it's no doubt we're bitter about it. We've already sacrificed a lot of tradition for cash. Obviously as financial disparity has grown it becomes of a greater consequence to the smaller clubs, i.e Oldham at Liverpool and a smaller deal to say Aston Villa or West Ham who need to plough their resources into to staying in the big money.

 

So what happens if the clubs lower in the premier league do take it seriously? They might get to the final or semi final only to discover they are playing a team who's bench they can't afford. Obviously Wigan won it against Man City - but I wonder what Dave Whelan makes of that now that they've missed out on the TV money? The fans were the real victors but will they recover from it? I don't think Bolton ever really recovered from losing the semi final against Stoke - look at them now - stranded in the championship £170m in debt.

 

Regards traditional specifically, We're using a bright pink football made by NIKE, the final kicks off at a stupid time and it's now - The F.A Cup with Budweiser as Gus Poyet so eloquently put it in his program notes. Fans have grown more & more acquiescent to change so it looks to me as if the wheels are in motion and football in England is moving away from the fans and towards the TV Audience around the globe. The semi finals are played at Wembley fo crying out loud!

 

It's a tough one - I love the cups & it's our only chance of silverware but it's fairly obvious that Ashley sees them as an unwelcome distraction from the premier league cash cow.

 

We were known as a cup team for decades & we're one of the early successes in the F.A cup. I think by 1955 it was only ourselves and Blackburn had 6 Cups. Since then we've turned up and had our arse handed to us by classic Liverpool, Arsenal & Manchester United teams. We simply weren't good enough & when we were didn't have the luck.

 

I wouldn't say the magic of the cup is dying - I'd go a step further and say that it's English football on a whole.

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Perhaps. I was only thinking of how it could equalise squad sizes. To be totally honest I think that the FA cup will never be the same as what it was simply because the game is not what it was. A Champions League place or extra points toward the league could slightly rejuvenate it, however ultimately the final incentive of those two perks is money. Unless there was a real fiscal bonus to winning the FA cup then we will continue to see what we have seen in many premier league clubs this weekend. A fucking grim reality if you ask me and indicative of where football is going.

10% of all gate receipts from Championship and above goes into the pot?

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I think awarding points for cup performances is fairly absurd - that's what the league is for. In addition how would it be administered? What about lower league teams?

 

For incentives the only thing most clubs care about is the money - which like it or not is part of 'the magic' of the cup. Obviously for premier league teams it's not enough but a small club taking a share of the gates at Old Trafford has always been a big aspect of the cup.

 

I don't think Portsmouth or Wigan fans think it's lost it's magic. We're just such a non entity in cup competitions it's no doubt we're bitter about it. We've already sacrificed a lot of tradition for cash. Obviously as financial disparity has grown it becomes of a greater consequence to the smaller clubs, i.e Oldham at Liverpool and a smaller deal to say Aston Villa or West Ham who need to plough their resources into to staying in the big money.

 

So what happens if the clubs lower in the premier league do take it seriously? They might get to the final or semi final only to discover they are playing a team who's bench they can't afford. Obviously Wigan won it against Man City - but I wonder what Dave Whelan makes of that now that they've missed out on the TV money? The fans were the real victors but will they recover from it? I don't think Bolton ever really recovered from losing the semi final against Stoke - look at them now - stranded in the championship £170m in debt.

 

Regards traditional specifically, We're using a bright pink football made by NIKE, the final kicks off at a stupid time and it's now - The F.A Cup with Budweiser as Gus Poyet so eloquently put it in his program notes. Fans have grown more & more acquiescent to change so it looks to me as if the wheels are in motion and football in England is moving away from the fans and towards the TV Audience around the globe. The semi finals are played at Wembley fo crying out loud!

 

It's a tough one - I love the cups & it's our only chance of silverware but it's fairly obvious that Ashley sees them as an unwelcome distraction from the premier league cash cow.

 

We were known as a cup team for decades & we're one of the early successes in the F.A cup. I think by 1955 it was only ourselves and Blackburn had 6 Cups. Since then we've turned up and had our arse handed to us by classic Liverpool, Arsenal & Manchester United teams. We simply weren't good enough & when we were didn't have the luck.

 

I wouldn't say the magic of the cup is dying - I'd go a step further and say that it's English football on a whole.

Well, that's ruined my Sunday.

 

:(

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Thing is, last year was actually quite a good year for both cups - Swansea beat Bradford City in the final of the League Cup, and of course Wigan beat Man City in the FA Cup.

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10% of all gate receipts from Championship and above goes into the pot?

 

If the FA was to implement that then they would be opening up the Pandoras box of tackling the huge problematic of financial disparity in football. It'd be much like the anxiety people have about bringing in technology in football: the well-worn cliched question of 'where will it end if we do? Technology for throw in decisions etc?' Only, in respect to considering money inequality however I think that the possibility of a snowball effect would be far too dangerous for the FA to ever truly consider on a large scale. I think we are too far gone to address this in a practical sense of restructuring football's finance unfortunately.

Edited by ADP
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Pains me to see the deference to the cup gone. These were the big games in a season and the final was an event from the morning till kick off. What have got now? Certain clubs virtually sponsored by the media while the rest just plod on their own trying to stay in the division and sacrificing potential glory for perpetual mediocrity in run of the mill league games. Football in this country needs sky to become bankrupt and start again even if it means the likes of man u suffering in the cl then frankly, so fucking what? :lol:

 

Never felt as disillusioned about football as I do now which is odd seeing as we're 8th in the top division and been a lot worse off, it's not our game anymore. It might be an age thing but I'm not too sure.

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If the FA was to implement that then they would be opening up the Pandoras box of tackling the huge problematic of financial disparity in football. It'd be much like the anxiety people have about bringing in technology in football: the well-worn cliched question of 'where will it end if we do? Technology for throw in decisions etc?' Only, in respect to considering money inequality however I think that the possibility of a snowball effect would be far too dangerous for the FA to ever truly consider on a large scale. I think we are too far gone to address this in a practical sense of restructuring football's finance unfortunately.

I want to open Pandora's box. I wanna get all up in there. I wanna build a log cabin up in that bitch. I wanna vacation there with my 2.4 family and maybe do a bit of creative writing on the porch, yea boi

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The people need to turn their backs on the game. Not to fix it cos I don't even think that it's fixable, more for their own sanity/self respect.

 

The old Bobby Robson line about a club "being" the fans just doesn't hold water anymore. At the top level, the fans are completely irrelevant.

 

Re the OP, if you want a club that takes cup runs seriously, pick one in League 2 where it means more than a rounding to their bottom line. If you want your average premiership club to take it seriously, then the only way that happens is for the FA to throw money at it. It's all that matters to Premiership clubs.

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I want to open Pandora's box. I wanna get all up in there. I wanna build a log cabin up in that bitch. I wanna vacation there with my 2.4 family and maybe do a bit of creative writing on the porch, yea boi

 

 

Don't we all...

 

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Money money money that would be the only incentive for our owner.

Yup. Thats what most are interested in so put a good wedge for the winner and runner up, skimmed off each level of the premier league finishing.

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As I see it, some of the reasons for decline are:

 

I. Money - Chairmen always loved a cup run because it meant a significant boost in finances, these days the PL money significantly outweighs what can be earned from a home draw/televised game.

 

II. Entry to the Europa League - Self-explanatory really and goes hand in hand with the decline of the prestige of the Europa League.

 

III. Saturation of televised football - It used to be that a televised game was a great treat, now the 3rd round matches come at the end of the Christmas period of fixtures where there's a couple of games on TV nearly every other day, a FA Cup match on TV doesn't hold the special feeling that it once did.

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Ewerk is spot on with assessment, but theres nowt to be done as far as I can see...the horse bolted a decade and a half ago at least.

 

Time was when if two sides from the same division were drawn together in the FA cup, the cup game would invariably have a higher attendance than either of the league games between the two sides. Imagine that..imagine only two live games shown on TV per season..TWO ffs! :lol: ...the cup final and Engalnd v Scotland a week or so later...fuck me this weekend has utterly depressed me :(

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Timing of it doesnt help either. In January teams already know if theyre gonna be relegation candidates, fighting for Europe or Title contenders, so they can weigh up whether a cup run would be worth it or not, as the money in the Premier League is too valuable for clubs now. I know it will be almost impossible to do but if it started at the beginning of the season, when teams were relatively fresh and the "pressures" were lesser in the league may benefit it as a whole.

 

I know it starts earlier for non-league teams and thats what would make it impossible to start it earlier for the big teams.

Edited by StoneColdStephenIreland
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Hard to get excited when we're now so used to going out early, and 3 games before you even get to the quarters makes it seem massively far away, but I'm fairly sure a lot of that interest in this dead cup would be soon resurrected among the fans if we made it to say the quarters and drew a beatable team.

 

 

Dead/dying in the eyes of business driven owners of all but the top 6/7 table clubs, still very much alive for the fans imo (fans of clubs who put together cup runs anyway :glare:).

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