NEIL MOXLEY Midweek ties are final nail in FA Cup’s coffin
Fwolwloww. Tew. eurk: @peoplesport PLANS are afoot to turn the FA Cup into a midweek event.
Premier League bosses want to corner weekend slots for themselves because that’s when TV fees are highest.
So those precious dates which are set aside each season for a competition once so esteemed are now under serious threat.
The FA Cup has already been turned into a second-rate event. If this proposal is adopted, it will become a third-rate sideshow.
It’s simply unacceptable that the FA Cup – loved by the punters but clearly an irritant to the elite – should suffer such a dramatic fall from grace.
It took some swallowing when Premier League clubs began to water down their first- choice XIs. Now Championship sides are doing the same.
It means that acts of giant-killing have become altogether less heroic.
Casual
Lincoln City last season was a fun ride. The same goes for Sutton United – although Leeds boss Garry Monk couldn’t even be bothered to field his first-choice side for a trip to south-west London. And look where that got him in the end...
But Wolves’ victory at Anfield wasn’t the great effort it appeared once the casual punter glanced through Jurgen Klopp’s team-sheet. The Reds boss wasn’t alone, mind. Claudio Ranieri didn’t bother choosing Leicester City’s best for an east Midlands dust-up at Derby County, and just managed to scrape a replay, thanks to a late Wes Morgan goal.
And Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe simply selected his reserves for a tie at Millwall.
None of those so- called ‘ shock’ results were anything like a York City triumph over Arsenal or Colchester United defeating Leeds back in the day. The whole nation has been brainwashed into thinking that the FA Cup doesn’t matter any more. At the moment it does. Just. The big-hitters made it through to the last four of the competition a couple of months ago. And they wanted to lift the pot. All of ’em.
And is it any coincidence that the two best games I saw last season were the Chelsea v Tottenham semi-final and the final itself?
Players and fans still want to win the Cup, even if owners and managers do little more than nod at it patronisingly. If, however, the Football Association does give in – and the promise in return is a two-week mid-winter break that will supposedly help the England team because the players are fresher – then they might as well not bother running it.
Let’s be clear on this.
Unique
If this awful proposal gets the green light, any hint of the ‘ magic’ that supposedly surrounds this competition will be lost. Forever.
We won’t get it back. In fact, you could go so far as to say that if the