The answer, as supporters, is in our hands. Don't buy tickets for the games. See how the FA get along without their cut of the turnstile income.
I've actually kind of already done this. Don't see the point of paying to see our 2nd eleven - The first eleven are bad enough - perform badly against a lower level team in a cup game. If the club can't take the games seriously, I don't see why I should.
There's not necessarily a right and wrong. But on the other hand if we are concerned about the FA Cup being a positive for both the EFL clubs and their fans, then not attending games just makes both worse.
If the EPL clubs don’t want replays, there’s quite a good solution… if you can’t win your tie in 90 minutes, you forfeit the replay.
If you’re Spurs, or Brighton, or Everton, and you can’t beat Bradford, or Crawley, or Accrington Stanley in 90 minutes, you’re out and they go through to the next round.
For years I've advocated for extra time to be played in the event of level scores in the initial tie. 'But that favours the home side' come the cries. That's the joy of a competition governed by a draw for each round. If being drawn first of the pair isn't to be relevant then seed the whole thing from the start with the lower ranked side getting the home tie. That would inevitably reduce the number of replays, probably in favour of higher ranked sides, probably because their players would be fitter. No guarantees.
The FA's care for 'the pyramid' evaporated a generation ago. The premier league only needs the FA for its members/owners to gain admission to the UEFA competitions so the FA fellates the PL with its bum in the air for the gratification of whichever other 'partners' pony up the readies for their place on the TV money gravy train. The FA barely understands money it has no understanding at all of value. All protestations for the 'good of the game' are the tissue thin lies of the shameless. Only in the last few years since the terrestrial (poor relation) TV channels have been showing early FA cup matches live has the FA made any attempt for the lowest ranked sides to get TV games and thereby allow the money to trickle down. Before that we could guarantee the same few premier league teams got the TV cash each round "bigger TV audience/interest" was the shalllow mendacious justification. £150K facility fee never made a damn bit of difference to ManUre or the Scousers.
The FA has run roughshod over everybody below the PL because it just about realises it needs the PL more than the PL needs the FA. The prospect of a European Super League hasn't gone away and the FA is still shitting itself cos it knows it is King Cnut facing that incoming tide. Its last remaining hope is a PL2 to keep itself relevant. At which point auto promo/relegation from/to the runty EFL will stop.
Realistically if the 'top' 25 or 30 teams don't want to overstretch their players between January and April they should have to put out younger and 'weaker' sides in the cups - nothing new there. Dumping replays for all rounds displays the FA's utter contempt for its own competition and the teams below EPL. Dumping replays from round 3 onwards would fit the 'justification' better - maybe that's the "concession" the FA has got up its sleeve. To rob the likes of Cray Valley PM the chance of a replay fixture against even ropey opposition like Charlton is bang average FA corrupt complacency. Just that one sold out game sorted out CVPM's finances for rest of the season - the TV money should set them on a much more stable footing for a couple of seasons at least (if managed competently obvs) But the FA hasn't given a funk for its actual responsibility for decades. The EFL has got someone to write a decent statement but that toothless witless shambles won't actually stand in the way of the FA's paymasters will. Well as that statement reads, it doesn't propose any alternatives or mitigations does it? EFL doesn't actually give a damn either. No FA cup replays means fewer disruptions to its tinpot fizzydrink/pizza/paintpot kickabout trophy fiasco. EFL doesn't make anything out of the FA cup or from its member teams if they do, ergo not one fig given.
The Premier League members/owners will get their way, everything until then is just so much noise
But it's not a joke to those who do go. When I was in Blighty I never missed one. If I could come over for one, I still would. I care. I should be heard because I support my club in the FA Cup.
You are correct about our attendances suggesting we don't care but it's not just about us.
Imagine being Maidstone and they pull off a shock against Man utd at home and hold them to a draw inside 90 minutes. The last thing they will want is another 30 minutes. They would bite your hand off for a once in a lifetime trip to Old Trafford.
The FA are a bunch of spineless tossers and it's quite extraordinary to take this step without any consultation. Whatever the FA might say in their mealy mouthed statement, what Steve Kavanagh says has a compelling ring of truth.
The FA devalued their own competition in 1999/2000 by pressing the then holders, Manchester United, not to participate. so that United could participate in a meaningless 2000 FIFA Club World Championship in South America. The FA's belief was that it would assist England's 2006 World Cup bid and we all know how that (and later bids) ended.
The FA have being trying to maintain the relevance of the FA Cup in the face of the PL’s muscle, including the ‘carrot’ of a spot in the Europa Cup for the winners. The problem is that the Champions League regulars tend to win the competition most years, so a Europa Cup spot is usually irrelevant to them.
I do wonder if the tactical approach of the FA and the PL is to act unilaterally in the knowledge that it would prompt outrage, with the FA subsequently rowing back and reinstating replays for the 1st and 2nd rounds. It sounds a ridiculous approach but I wouldn’t put anything past these clowns.
I would like the non-PL teams to jointly boycott the competition next season but, realistically, that’s not going to happen.
You are correct about our attendances suggesting we don't care but it's not just about us.
Imagine being Maidstone and they pull off a shock against Man utd at home and hold them to a draw inside 90 minutes. The last thing they will want is another 30 minutes. They would bite your hand off for a once in a lifetime trip to Old Trafford.
Imagine being Maidstone at home to Grimsby and knowing the winner plays Man Itd in the next round.
If hold them to a draw inside 90 minutes The last thing they want is a midweek traipse to the east coast when they could win a penalty shoot out and be on way to Old Trafford
“The agreement, which is for a minimum of six years, starts next season. All rounds of the Emirates FA Cup will now be played on weekends, including the fifth round which has been played in midweek for the last five seasons.
The fourth and fifth rounds and the quarter-finals all will be exclusive of Premier League fixtures for the first time, and the fourth round will have an extended window from Friday to Wednesday to allow fans to watch consecutive days of Emirates FA Cup football.”
The FA can’t tell the truth from one paragraph to the next. Or are Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday now confirmed as part of the weekend? No wonder they’re so incompetent at running the national game!!
Sounds good to me, Friday to Wednesday as a weekend, means I only have to work on a Thursday. In all seriousness, if it has been mentioned before apologies but we've had an excellent example of how a replay can be of such great benefit. Cray Valley have already upgraded facilities at Badgers, team is flying and after the way they played at The Valley they more than earned another go.
I cannot comprehend anyone being happy with this other than those half a dozen clubs who benfit financially. I can see the arguments put up by the tiny number of posters in favour, and I disagree entirely. The nature of the way the decision has been made is what really rankles - 732 clubs entered the competition this season, and effectively 6 or 7 have decided the other 725 can do one.
I don't know why they bother with football at all at the top level anymore - why not just compare bank accounts and the one with the highest balance gets the trophy?
It's not as if the big clubs play their first teams anyway, so wheres the extra games for their poor little millionaires to play?
If they dont like the competition, which they clearly dont, then just dont enter it. Rather than flexing their muscles and forcing hundreds of other clubs to do what they want.
Mental that these changes, on the face of it, seem to have been made on complaints from managers who won't even be managing in this country in a couple of years. Obviously it's all the money in the background thays driven this, but I'm amazed at how dim the FA must be to have thought this wouldn't get any backlash.
“The agreement, which is for a minimum of six years, starts next season. All rounds of the Emirates FA Cup will now be played on weekends, including the fifth round which has been played in midweek for the last five seasons.
The fourth and fifth rounds and the quarter-finals all will be exclusive of Premier League fixtures for the first time, and the fourth round will have an extended window from Friday to Wednesday to allow fans to watch consecutive days of Emirates FA Cup football.”
The FA can’t tell the truth from one paragraph to the next. Or are Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday now confirmed as part of the weekend? No wonder they’re so incompetent at running the national game!!
So rounds 4 and 5 and the QF will have no PL games those weekends. Is that right? If so haven't they made their busy calender even worse by losing three weekends on which some PL games could be played?
Mental that these changes, on the face of it, seem to have been made on complaints from managers who won't even be managing in this country in a couple of years. Obviously it's all the money in the background thays driven this, but I'm amazed at how dim the FA must be to have thought this wouldn't get any backlash.
They don't care. Those in charge at the FA personally earn a lot of money from their position, this is bankrolled by the EPL, they look at their bank accounts and shrug - like so many people with power do these days...
“The agreement, which is for a minimum of six years, starts next season. All rounds of the Emirates FA Cup will now be played on weekends, including the fifth round which has been played in midweek for the last five seasons.
The fourth and fifth rounds and the quarter-finals all will be exclusive of Premier League fixtures for the first time, and the fourth round will have an extended window from Friday to Wednesday to allow fans to watch consecutive days of Emirates FA Cup football.”
The FA can’t tell the truth from one paragraph to the next. Or are Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday now confirmed as part of the weekend? No wonder they’re so incompetent at running the national game!!
So rounds 4 and 5 and the QF will have no PL games those weekends. Is that right? If so haven't they made their busy calender even worse by losing three weekends on which some PL games could be played?
Frees up weekend's for a lucrative friendly somewhere.
It can work both ways though. I know it wasn't in the FA cup but we knocked out Brighton last season because there was no replay. I'm not saying it is right or wrong but it isn't straightforward.
I do think Pep and Klopp moaning about too many games is ridiculous though.
Article by Ben Hardie of Sunderland's A Love Supreme fanzine.
Recently the FA announced a rather major change to the format of the FA Cup by completely scrapping replays from the First Round onwards and, whilst this certainly won’t affect Sunderland in any major capacity, it definitely will have a profound negative effect on many of the teams below us in League One and Two and non-league clubs. Because of this, I believe a boycott from clubs in the EFL (non-league clubs still need the revenue) is needed for next year’s competition.
We need to send a message to the Premier League and Football Association that both denying lower league clubs a major source of revenue in the form of replays and making changes to one of the best things about English football without consulting the 700+ teams who play in the competition on a yearly basis who aren’t in the top flight is completely unacceptable.
By deciding how a competition which is primarily made up of teams outside of the top flight without also receiving input from those clubs is yet another example of football moving away from its traditional roots and more evidence that the FA is now merely a puppet to the Premier League and broadcasters. FA Cup games being broadcast on non free to air channels from 2025-26 was the first warning sign that the people running football in this country simply do not care about the sport itself but rather how they can benefit themselves through lucrative deals. The arguments for scrapping replays are ridiculously lazy to the point where you have to think they are almost trying to mock teams who aren’t in the Premier League.
Fixture congestion doesn’t make any sense as an argument because EFL clubs will often play far more games than their Premier League counterparts. They could play in three different cup competitions and also feature in the playoffs. Compare this to a Premier League side who isn't in a European competition, and they’ve got only two cup competitions and a lesser amount of league fixtures to worry about. Besides, even if Premier League clubs tended to play more games than their lower league counterparts, they have access to far far more resources than them and should be able to deal with a greater amount of fixture congestion. Look at Truro City or Gateshead’s fixture schedule in the last few game weeks and I’ve not heard a single complaint from either of their managers - unlike Jurgen Klopp who thinks he’s entitled to moan about an entirely normal schedule for a season.
I didn’t see any of these Premier League clubs complaining about FIFA expanding the Club World Cup, or Champions/Europa League (and the reason for that is no doubt monetary) so why is potentially having to play a couple of extra games in the FA Cup such a big inconvenience? When the likes of Shrewsbury managed to take Liverpool to a replay it was a huge moment for them and a fantastic achievement; go back further and would Sunderland, a Second Division side, have been able to win the FA Cup in 1973 without replays? The big actors want to strip football of what makes it great, stories of teams defying the odds to challenge bigger clubs, to benefit coddled Premier League stars and whiny managers who don’t actually understand why regular people love the game.
A boycott of EFL clubs would be a huge statement and actually show the Premier League that they aren’t the only power in English football who gets to have a say. The EFL existed long before the Premier League and the FA Cup longer before the EFL so how is right that only the 20 clubs who happen to make up the top flight in this exact moment in time get to have a say?
For some clubs like Sunderland scrapping replays is probably actually a benefit. But that is why it is vital the bigger clubs in the Championship - Leeds, Ipswich, Leicester, West Brom etc - need to show solidarity with their fellow lower league clubs and get behind a boycott to demonstrate that football shouldn’t be about selfishness and doing what only benefits your club.
Without replays we wouldn’t have seen Crawley Town get to the Fifth Round in 2010/11 as a non-league side nor Sutton doing the same in 2016/17. Those were major achievements and remember how talked about that Marine vs Tottenham game was?
The FA doing this is a major dereliction of duty to run the game for the benefit of all clubs no matter how small and if the clubs outside of the Premier League don’t do everything in their power to make them rethink their decision it’s only going to get worse. Eventually I fear the FA Cup and certainly the League Cup may cease to exist as the tournaments we are all familiar with (if that hasn’t already happened). I’m not sure if a boycott would work but we have to try something otherwise the rich will simply continue to mutilate our game that existed long before they got involved. Perhaps hyperbolic, but I think this genuinely could lead to the death of non-league football clubs and deny non-league clubs the ability financially to gain promotion to the Football League. That should be reason enough to no longer allow those running the game to run it into the ground like a series of ungenerous oligarchs.
Charlton Athletic were surprised and disappointed to learn of this week’s decision to scrap replays in the FA Cup.
The FA Cup is a wonderful competition and one that our club, as past winners, have a proud history in. Replays are a part of the FA Cup and, as noted by Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust on Friday, provide a hope and excitement for fans which are so vital to our game.
As with other EFL clubs, we were given no prior notice or explanation of the decision, and we await clarification on the process for making this decision. We stand with our supporters and many other clubs across the land in demanding that this decision is urgently reviewed.
Comments
But on the other hand if we are concerned about the FA Cup being a positive for both the EFL clubs and their fans, then not attending games just makes both worse.
If you’re Spurs, or Brighton, or Everton, and you can’t beat Bradford, or Crawley, or Accrington Stanley in 90 minutes, you’re out and they go through to the next round.
'But that favours the home side' come the cries.
That's the joy of a competition governed by a draw for each round.
If being drawn first of the pair isn't to be relevant then seed the whole thing from the start with the lower ranked side getting the home tie.
That would inevitably reduce the number of replays, probably in favour of higher ranked sides, probably because their players would be fitter. No guarantees.
The FA's care for 'the pyramid' evaporated a generation ago. The premier league only needs the FA for its members/owners to gain admission to the UEFA competitions so the FA fellates the PL with its bum in the air for the gratification of whichever other 'partners' pony up the readies for their place on the TV money gravy train.
The FA barely understands money it has no understanding at all of value. All protestations for the 'good of the game' are the tissue thin lies of the shameless.
Only in the last few years since the terrestrial (poor relation) TV channels have been showing early FA cup matches live has the FA made any attempt for the lowest ranked sides to get TV games and thereby allow the money to trickle down. Before that we could guarantee the same few premier league teams got the TV cash each round "bigger TV audience/interest" was the shalllow mendacious justification. £150K facility fee never made a damn bit of difference to ManUre or the Scousers.
The FA has run roughshod over everybody below the PL because it just about realises it needs the PL more than the PL needs the FA.
The prospect of a European Super League hasn't gone away and the FA is still shitting itself cos it knows it is King Cnut facing that incoming tide.
Its last remaining hope is a PL2 to keep itself relevant. At which point auto promo/relegation from/to the runty EFL will stop.
Realistically if the 'top' 25 or 30 teams don't want to overstretch their players between January and April they should have to put out younger and 'weaker' sides in the cups - nothing new there.
Dumping replays for all rounds displays the FA's utter contempt for its own competition and the teams below EPL.
Dumping replays from round 3 onwards would fit the 'justification' better - maybe that's the "concession" the FA has got up its sleeve.
To rob the likes of Cray Valley PM the chance of a replay fixture against even ropey opposition like Charlton is bang average FA corrupt complacency. Just that one sold out game sorted out CVPM's finances for rest of the season - the TV money should set them on a much more stable footing for a couple of seasons at least (if managed competently obvs)
But the FA hasn't given a funk for its actual responsibility for decades.
The EFL has got someone to write a decent statement but that toothless witless shambles won't actually stand in the way of the FA's paymasters will.
Well as that statement reads, it doesn't propose any alternatives or mitigations does it? EFL doesn't actually give a damn either. No FA cup replays means fewer disruptions to its tinpot fizzydrink/pizza/paintpot kickabout trophy fiasco. EFL doesn't make anything out of the FA cup or from its member teams if they do, ergo not one fig given.
The Premier League members/owners will get their way, everything until then is just so much noise
When I was in Blighty I never missed one.
If I could come over for one, I still would.
I care.
I should be heard because I support my club in the FA Cup.
Imagine being Maidstone and they pull off a shock against Man utd at home and hold them to a draw inside 90 minutes. The last thing they will want is another 30 minutes. They would bite your hand off for a once in a lifetime trip to Old Trafford.
The FA devalued their own competition in 1999/2000 by pressing the then holders, Manchester United, not to participate. so that United could participate in a meaningless 2000 FIFA Club World Championship in South America. The FA's belief was that it would assist England's 2006 World Cup bid and we all know how that (and later bids) ended.
“The agreement, which is for a minimum of six years, starts next season. All rounds of the Emirates FA Cup will now be played on weekends, including the fifth round which has been played in midweek for the last five seasons.
The fourth and fifth rounds and the quarter-finals all will be exclusive of Premier League fixtures for the first time, and the fourth round will have an extended window from Friday to Wednesday to allow fans to watch consecutive days of Emirates FA Cup football.”
I don't know why they bother with football at all at the top level anymore - why not just compare bank accounts and the one with the highest balance gets the trophy?
If they dont like the competition, which they clearly dont, then just dont enter it. Rather than flexing their muscles and forcing hundreds of other clubs to do what they want.
I would like the non-PL teams to jointly boycott the competition next season but, realistically, that’s not going to happen.
I would love to see this happen
Forget Cafc for a minute but clubs like Cray valley paper mills getting two live TV matches was a massive boost to their annual income.
I do think Pep and Klopp moaning about too many games is ridiculous though.
Yes, ask all participants of the competition
No, ask the 20 teams with the most money.
Recently the FA announced a rather major change to the format of the FA Cup by completely scrapping replays from the First Round onwards and, whilst this certainly won’t affect Sunderland in any major capacity, it definitely will have a profound negative effect on many of the teams below us in League One and Two and non-league clubs. Because of this, I believe a boycott from clubs in the EFL (non-league clubs still need the revenue) is needed for next year’s competition.
Charlton Athletic were surprised and disappointed to learn of this week’s decision to scrap replays in the FA Cup.
The FA Cup is a wonderful competition and one that our club, as past winners, have a proud history in. Replays are a part of the FA Cup and, as noted by Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust on Friday, provide a hope and excitement for fans which are so vital to our game.
As with other EFL clubs, we were given no prior notice or explanation of the decision, and we await clarification on the process for making this decision. We stand with our supporters and many other clubs across the land in demanding that this decision is urgently reviewed.