By Andy Naylor.
Ask any football fan what they would prefer – finish 4th in the Premier League and enter the “Champions” League or win the FA Cup? I guarantee that all but the very dumbest would choose the FA Cup. As fans we want to see our clubs win something tangible, something to celebrate and something to add to the honours of the club. How many roll of honours contain “finished 4th in the league”? Precisely. Then why are the FA and Premier League hell-bent on belittling this beloved competition? Money is to blame, or to be more accurate, greed.
The fans of all leagues love this competition. Where else can a small local club like Crawley Town get to play at Old Trafford? It’s a competition that forges heroes and that kids dream of winning. It’s the perfect show piece to end the season with. Or it used to be. Plus, Wembley is where the final, and only the final, should be held. It should be part of the special allure that is Cup final day, but no, the FA now has semi-finals there in a bid to rake in yet more cash and bleed the fans dry. If we didn’t have ample evidence of how clueless their buffoonery was, we’d assume that they were actually trying to ruin it.
In recent years the final has played second fiddle to the lucrative Premier League, which now ends the week after the Cup final. If that wasn’t bad enough, this year there were actually Premier League games on the same day, one of which allowed Manchester Utd to secure a record 19th league title, thereby robbing some of the limelight from bitter rivals Manchester City, who won the FA Cup later that day. Fans don’t want that, players don’t even want it. Everton Captain Phil Neville even commented on it via Twitter “Why are there games on the same day as the FA Cup final can someone please tell me a logical answer?” No-one wants it, but unfortunately for us fans, the men who run football in this country are too concerned with stroking their bulging wallets while taking orders from UEFA and its “Champions” League. Even the irony of the name is sickening, since the vast majority of the teams now competing in it are not the champions of their respective countries.
Every single game of the FA Cup provides a chance of an underdog victory, the essence of any good cup competition, which adds to the love the fans have for it. The “Champions” league is so rigged and biased that even if the bigger teams have an off day they will probably still be okay. It doesn’t have a true draw, as there are so many rules keeping the bigger clubs apart until the latter stages, so they can still recover and progress.
Year by year I become less interested in modern football. It’s no longer the working man’s game. Most of all though, I pity the FA Cup, it’s dying a slow and painful death and the men at the top don’t care.
