27th of February 2024 we produced an article called The Death of the FA Cup. This was on the back of the decision to allow the TNT sports the exclusive rights to the FA Cup games. TNT Sports being a subscription service, whereas the FA Cup has always been played on terrestrial channels.
That article details the highs and lows, also the most recent decline, of the FA Cup so there’s no need to go back into that again. Today we wish to discuss the FA’s most recent decimation of the great English footballing tradition.
English football fans love the FA Cup. Especially fans of my age (38) and older who remember when it was a highlight of the footballing season. That love isn’t shared by the FA and it seems once again that the FA are showing a massive bias to the more media franchise friendly teams. The removal of replays, from the first round onwards, will be for the benefit of the top 6 teams and the detriment of the rest of the leagues. The removal of the replays will coincide with the changes to the champions league as it starts it’s new “Swiss model” format next season. This will change the amount of teams in the competition from 32 to 36 increasing the amount of games from 125 to 189. The Champions League will obviously take precedent over the FA Cup. The glitz and glamour of the European tournament has a more sellable value, Sky Sports will prefer a 7.30 Thursday night kick off in the San Siro, then a rainy Wednesday afternoon in Prenton Park.
If this is to benefit the top 6 then what about the repercussions to the other 66 clubs? Well first and foremost the prestige for lower league clubs feel playing in further rounds then expected to grow their reputation by playing, and hopefully beating, some of the better teams up the leagues. They will also get the chance to play these teams live on telly! Many of these teams will rarely be seen on the sports channels until they do have a cup run. Taking away the chance of an extra game against Man Utd after a draw at home and then an away day at Old Trafford is devastating for these teams.
More importantly for the financial health of the clubs is the money earned from cup runs. This doesn’t have the same effect for the premier league teams, so a replay can be seen as an unwanted fixture. For example, a case study by Delliot showed that in the season of 2009/10 for Stoke City (a premier league team at the time) the FA Cup produced 4% of their total club revenue. In 2007/08 Non-league Havant & Waterlooville earned 0.6mil to boost their club revenue by 70%. This proves the difference in importance of the cup for a lower league team compared to a premier league team when it comes to finances.
At a normal league game the gate receipts go to the home team, but at an FA Cup match the gate receipts are split equally between the two teams. This gives the lower league teams the chance to make a decent bit of income. If they are drawn at home, they will see a bumper gate split with the away side, but if they tie and then find themselves playing a replay in the Emirates stadium with 60,704 capacity. Half the gate on that will be helpful pay day. The average capacity of a league 2 side is around 10,000. That’s 6 times the capacity with much more expensive ticket prices.
In 2005/06 Burton Albion drew 0-0 with Manchester United. Winning the chance of a replay at old Trafford (68,000 capacity). They were soundly battered 5-0 by the team 104 places above them, off the field the National League team won the jackpot. 10,500 Albion fans had a day out to see their team play at Old Trafford and the club coffers were boosted a £0.5mil gate receipt revenue.
Football has long been seen as a working-class sport and there’s nothing more exciting than seeing normal working-class lads, on semi-professional contracts, take on the might of the commercial premier league teams. This is why we love the FA Cup, and this is why the anger over what might seem like an unimportant extra fixture.
The big premier league teams are no longer owned by local financiers or fans groups. The big teams in the premier league are owned by billionaires, billionaire companies, or in the case of Newcastle United, a country with billions! All that money bounded around creates a need for a level of control by those spending. These owners will not want all the money they have thrown at the expensively assembled teams to be wasted at Portman road. They want massive gates and paid TV slots. This is why the super league will keep coming up. These capitalist owners don’t want any risk to their stranglehold on English football and their need to pull out as much profit as possible. Playing lower league clubs in the FA Cup is an annoyance they want to limit as much as possible.
We at the Class Consciousness Project are completely against this cynical bias to the top teams and believe the format of the FA Cup should not be affected by the needs of the smallest amount of clubs, with the most money. We believe that replays should be re-instated and any further changes should be subject to a vote by all teams affected.
Class Consciousness Project 
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