How to Rejuvenate the FA Cup
The third round of the FA Cup produced its fair share of drama and shocks. Nottingham Forest put a 3-0 licking on a disinterested Manchester City side at the Eastlands. Chelsea allowed Southend United, a mid-table League One side, to score a late goal and force a replay. Hartlepool United booted Stoke City out of the competition, while non-league sides Kettering Town and Torquay United survived and advanced to the next round and put their names in the hat with giants like Liverpool and Arsenal.
And yet the thing that stood out the most this weekend might have been this Guardian poll, in which more than 83% of respondents said that finishing 17th in the Premier League and avoiding relegation is more important than winning the FA Cup.
Has it really come to this? Does mediocrity really mean more than winning the oldest, most storied trophy in football? If all that matters is the money, then the answer is yes. Avoiding relegation guarantees a club will earn more than £30 million from the Premier League next season, while a successful FA Cup run brings in only £3.8 million in prize money and a bid to the UEFA Cup, another competition that lacks in prestige and prize money.
Clearly, the FA needs to sweeten the pot a bit if wants to keep the FA Cup from becoming as irrelevant as other domestic cup competitions around the world. Since adding more cash to the pot doesn’t appear to be an option, perhaps the FA can do this — give the FA Cup winner a UEFA Champions League bid.
Don’t scoff. That’s how we do it in America.
You might have heard of the U.S. Open Cup, America’s domestic cup competition. It is perhaps the most disrespected competition in all of football. Don Garber and Sunil Gulati would have killed it years ago if not for Lamar Hunt, one of American soccer’s biggest benefactors. Now they can’t get rid of it, because the winner of the U.S. Open Cup gets a bid to the CONCACAF Champions League. This is how D.C. United got into next year’s Champions League despite missing the MLS Cup playoffs; they won the Open Cup. This gives every club in the U.S. hope for continental competition.
Given the rich history of the FA Cup in England, it only seems fitting that the champion of this competition have a shot at the continent, too. To keep the purists at bay, though, there should be one caveat — only the winner of the FA Cup should get a UEFA Champions League bid. After all, the club that gets to Wembley and lose the final isn’t exactly a champion, now, is it?
As of this season, the top three clubs in the Premier League automatically qualify for the Champions League group stage. The fourth-place finisher goes into the qualifying rounds. So let’s say, for example, that Arsenal manages to overcome Aston Villa and finish fourth, but Villa advances to the FA Cup final to face Manchester United. The Red Devils have already finished in the top three, so their Champions League spot is settled. If Villa tops United in this hypothetical FA Cup final, then they take the trophy and the Champions League qualifying bid, dropping Arsenal into the UEFA Cup. If Man United wins, though, the qualifying bid goes to fourth-place Arsenal, and it’s the UEFA Cup for Villa.
Unfair to the fourth-place finisher? Perhaps. Then again, maybe fourth place shouldn’t be considered good enough. Once upon a time, fourth place in England’s top flight got you nothing but a pat on the head. Fourth place doesn’t get you a medal at the Olympics. Why should it guarantee you one of the biggest prizes in European football? It’s the Champions League. Give that bid to a club that’s actually won something.
The other argument against this is that it would almost guarantee that Big Four clubs end up winning it every year. I fail to see why anyone in the FA would object to that. Wouldn’t they prefer to see Man United v. Chelsea in Wembley than Portsmouth v. Cardiff City? Doesn’t that mean more interest, more ticket sales and better worldwide TV ratings? And wouldn’t giving the winner a Champions League bid result in increased interest in the FA Cup and more exposure for all the stories of lower-league clubs that won the lottery and drew away ties against big clubs? A few people in Exeter might think so.
Of course, this solution might be too radical for some football purists, who would rather shout, “Bring back the Cup Winners Cup!”, than see this happen. Personally, I don’t mind a radical solution. After all, I’m the same guy who advocates pulling the Premier League clubs out of the Carling Cup and creating a separate Premier League Cup, which would allow the Premier League to do the sort of global barnstorming it wants without screwing up the league schedule with this 39th game nonsense. Besides, nobody outside of White Hart Lane really cares about the Carling Cup.
Either way, it seems obvious from that Guardian poll that the FA Cup is in danger of sliding toward the same sort of irrelevance shared by the Copa Del Rey and the Coppa Italia. Perhaps there should be more reward for winning this grand old knockout competition. Perhaps that would make the drama we saw this weekend far more epic. More importantly, perhaps it would make winning a trophy just a little more important than finishing 17th. Success should have greater rewards than mediocrity.