This is what’s gone wrong with the FA Cup

LOADS of people think this way. Only a few will actually say it. That is because they will be vilified by purists as footballing peasants.

The problem is, in its current format, the FA Cup is largely boring for the wider audience because it does not have enough romance.

The football, unless you are a diehard fan watching a plum tie, is largely dull. The whole competition is viewed by many as a fly in the ointment, a pain, an irritating sideshow in the Premier League season.

And those are the key words: Premier League. It tramples over everything without a hint of conscience. Look, Google this: finish one place above the relegation zone and you ‘win’ £108million (RM586.65m). Win the FA Cup, you get £1.8m (RM9.78m).

Failure in the Premier League is rewarded 100 times more than success in Britain’s oldest competition.

To be honest, however, you can probably include most of the Championship clubs in this too.

Few fans from England’s top two divisions rubbed their hands together with glee because last weekend was FA Cup weekend.

Perhaps it’s a generational thing. Perhaps the most damning element of modern football is that many fans are more worried about a blank weekend for their Fantasy Football side than a glut of dire FA Cup ties the majority just aren’t interested in.

Sounds harsh but there’s probably more truth to it than anyone of us wants to admit. Everyone harps on about the romance of the cup.

The problem is, there just isn’t enough romance in the cup.

The romance is a low-ranked Football League team or, better still, a nonLeague side, drawing a Premier League club. That is romance. That is the FA Cup.

Forget whether they win or not. The romance is that they have ‘the chance’ to.

Suddenly, players the ordinary household would not necessarily know are superstars for the day. Hell, in the weeks in the build-up to the match too.

The problem is, there just isn’t enough of it. Plymouth was about the best of it over this cup weekend, taking the mighty (weakened) Liverpool back to Home Park.

But Liverpool Football Club, like pretty much every other Premier League and Championship side, do not care enough for it.

Would Jurgen Klopp have played the kids in a Champions League tie? In any Premier League match? Therein lies the answer to how magical the FA Cup is nowadays.

Plymouth fans deserve better – and the whole country should be behind them in the reply on January 18.

Money talks. And we shouldn’t really be surprised. So Manchester United vs Reading was on TV. It should have been.

What was the real tragedy was giving a scintilla of air time to West Ham vs Manchester City.

Frankly, I’d rather have painted a wall I didn’t need to paint just to watch it dry. Sutton vs AFC Wimbledon was a cup tie for TV.

Bolton vs Crystal Palace was a cup tie for TV. What do the BBC say?

They have to find a ‘balance’. Well if that was their one job, they failed.

What’s the answer? Everyone will have a different one and, in the post-mortem, everyone becomes an expert. But perhaps we adopt something from UEFA (God forbid); perhaps two Premier League sides cannot meet until the fifth round.

Surely that has to increase the chance of the FA Cup’s lifeblood – the romance. Because the FA Cup is about upsets. Well, I’m sorry if this piece upsets you but, in its current format, the FA Cup is out of date.

The powers the be can save it. It all depends on whether they have a romantic bone in their body. – Express Newspapers