Press Association Deputy Sports Editor Jamie Gardner argues the FA Cup winners should be awarded a Champions League place and that a Champions League play-off overseas should be introduced.
Football has always been about taking sides.
In the early 21st century, debates rage about how we best protect what made the game so special to millions around the world in the first place while finding ways to innovate and, in marketing parlance, “grow the game”.
Richard Scuadmore: no Premier League 39th game in forseeable future http://t.co/qS4hxwfYoD (Photo: Getty) pic.twitter.com/LKfjkNOVeJ
— Guardian sport (@guardian_sport) December 14, 2014
Football has, in so many ways, moved away from its traditions in pursuit of ever greater revenues. But what if there was a way to restore the FA Cup, the oldest domestic football competition in the world, to its former glory and also give Premier League clubs the chance to play each other competitively overseas in one move?
Some numbers…
Back in August, Manchester United faced Liverpool in front of 65,000 people at a sold-out Sun Life Stadium in Miami for a pre-season friendly.
Even further back, last January in fact, Manchester City hosted Blackburn in an FA Cup replay at the Etihad Stadium in front of 35,000 people.
Not too shabby, but that was almost 12,500 short of capacity, for a competitive fixture against another side from the north-west. On the same evening, Fulham beat Norwich in front of 11,172 people at Craven Cottage, which can hold 27,500.
So what does this tell us?
For a start, there is a huge appetite for top-level Premier League football in the US, among many other places overseas. It also tells us that the FA Cup struggles to attract the attention it used to.
So imagine if that Manchester United v Liverpool match in Miami was being played at the end of May at the same venue, and instead of being a glamorous but essentially meaningless friendly, it was a winner-takes-all showdown for a Champions League place? And imagine, too, if victory in those FA Cup replays also took teams a step nearer to the Champions League?
With Uefa’s consent, if one Champions League place could be conferred on the FA Cup winners, that could be a reality.
Under England’s current allocation of four places, three teams could qualify for the Champions League via the league, plus one via the FA Cup. The third of those “league” places could be contested in a one-off – or two-legged – overseas play-off in what would have to be the last domestic match of every season. The winner would enter the Champions League final qualifying round, one step away from the lucrative group phase.
At a stroke, managers, players and supporters would begin to take the FA Cup more seriously. That in turn would mean higher attendances, bigger TV revenues and larger sponsorship deals.
The 39th game would be a reality, have real meaning, and attract extra revenue both domestically and worldwide for the clubs involved, while also having appeased the traditionalists by helping to strengthen the FA Cup – the winners of whom would go straight into the Champions League groups.
The host venue for the Champions League play-off could change on an annual basis.
The “losing” team in the play-off may miss out on the millions on offer in the Champions League, but securing their share of the additional revenue from the play-off would soften that blow to some extent. Even the announcement of which city had won the right to stage the all-important play-off match or matches could become another TV extravaganza in itself.
So what are the drawbacks?
Firstly, finishing third and fourth would no longer guarantee Champions League qualification. It can be convincingly argued that consistency over 38 games is a better measure of quality than winning six games of knockout football between January and May, and it’s hard to disagree.
But there would still be three qualifying places allocated to the Premier League under this system, and the huge benefit to domestic cup football would be a price worth paying for that. It would also give the middle to lower reaches of the top flight – and even teams outside it – the chance to dream of a Champions League jackpot.
Another disadvantage of this move would be that the FA Cup final could not be the last match of the domestic season – because the cup final outcome may affect which two teams feature in the league play-off. But the FA Cup final has rarely been the last match of the season in recent years anyway, and there would be no reason why the showpiece match could not still have its own date on the schedule. Indeed, with a Champions League group place at stake, it would seem even less sensible to try to shoehorn league games onto the same weekend.
Supporters of the two teams involved would also no doubt be aggrieved at having loyally followed their teams throughout a 38-game season and then being forced to shell out for travel, accommodation and tickets to a far-flung destination at short notice. Clubs could lessen that pain, and ensure better support for their team, by ploughing some of the additional TV revenue back into a free ticket and travel package ballot for season ticket holders, with these draws to be made far in advance of the end of the season and allowing fans to at least provisionally make plans to book refundable travel and accommodation.
Not sure I can be bothered to watch the FA Cup final tomorrow. Football's authorities clearly don't care about it, so why should we?
— Rob Preece (@RobPreeceOnline) May 10, 2013
The Premier League too as an organisation may also be opposed to the plan – any such play-off would have to be played under the auspices of Uefa, and so while Premier League member clubs would benefit financially, the league itself would not. This therefore almost certainly does not fit with the league’s vision of how a 39th game should look.
With fewer automatic qualification places to chase though, it would almost certainly add further drama and intrigue to the Premier League run-in and make that an even more attractive product too.
Whichever way you look at it, commercially or as a purist, English football would surely be the winner.
Source: SNAPPA
