We sat down with director and FA Councilor John Nixon this morning to get an update on the ongoing situation regarding FA Cup replays following Friday’s FA Council meeting.
“I went to the council meeting on Friday and, like I mentioned last time we spoke, I had already told them I wanted to raise the issue of FA Cup replays because I was unhappy about the decision,” he explained.
“When it was brought up, the FA and Debbie Hewitt [FA chair] did well because they said they fully understood that the FA Cup was about the David and Goliath type games. They also acknowledged that they didn’t go about this process very well and probably got it wrong.
“Debbie said she had found that people either had issues with poor communication, the feeling of being cut off because they knew nothing about it, and the heart being ripped out of the FA Cup. She acknowledged that everybody she had spoken to fell into those three categories.
“It’s a massive move forward that they acknowledged that they made a mistake in the way it was communicated. Because of that, I think the FA and their leadership have shown they’re taking steps in the right direction."
“There were nearly 100 of us on the whole meeting on Friday and none of us had been party to what was happening," he continued. "There is a bigger picture somewhere which, I believe, will be to do with broadcasting and prize money, but they haven’t told us that. In my view, had they told us that, I think we would have been able to fully understand.
“I raised the issue because it didn’t look or feel right all the way through. That was because it was a deal between the FA and the Premier League, whereas in the past the EFL have been involved. It took the EFL 32 hours to put a statement out which indicated they weren’t happy with it.
“I’m also concerned that the deal was for £33m to basically buy out the replays, which seems a small amount. I made the point on Friday, if Luton end up joining Burnley and Sheffield United in going down as looks likely, next year they will get over £150m worth of parachute payments in their first season alone. They’re going to get five times as much as the FA have ‘sold’ replays for in their first season between the three of them.
“The Premier League have done this side deal and the FA have accepted it because it suits the Premier League. The Premier League is made up of a constant group of 24-26 teams who make decisions every season to guarantee future monies remain with themselves, because two out of every three clubs who get promoted to the Premier League are getting parachute payments.
“It’s the same this year, Leicester have already been promoted and all four play-off clubs will all have had parachute payments."
“I personally think this is all about the Premier League trying to guarantee they can run the FA Cup calendar which they’ve done because they’ve bought it out," John said.
“It’s wrong, because in the FA Cup, there are about 730 teams who are involved in the preliminary rounds from August. Representatives of 20 of those 730 took the decision to stop the replays, and the other 710 weren’t consulted and didn’t even know about it.
“The FA then put a letter out to us to try and explain their decision, and the two main reasons stated were player welfare and fixture congestion. I didn’t buy that totally, I understood it, but I didn’t buy it.
“For me, they’re going to lose the magic of it. Everybody watched Manchester United against Coventry in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley and expected a Manchester United win. That was a fantastic game and advert for the FA Cup, and without a replay against Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry might not have made it. The FA have sold a bit of that magic.
“I didn’t expect them to listen to us at the meeting on Friday and say that they were going to change their mind. I honestly think the chance of it changing is virtually nil, but I felt it was important to put the point across on behalf of our club and the other clubs who don’t agree with the decision.
“The main point of the meeting on Friday was to ask the FA whether they thought they’d done the right thing for those 710 clubs. I think they now think they should have listened to them and consulted with them rather than just taking the money from the 20 richest clubs so they could buy control of the calendar.”