Magic moments fading fast

With football fans still trying to shake off their New Year hangovers, their clubs were quickly back in action this weekend as the FA Cup third round took place.

Ah the magic of the FA Cup. The competition where everyone has the chance to become a hero: whether they’re a 100 grand-a-week superstar or an expenses-only part-timer. Known throughout the world as the greatest cup competition in football, it’s made journeymen players household names, reduced the game’s toughest players to tears and cost top bosses their jobs. Its history is ubiquitous with football itself, and my team is eliminated from it by teams comprising bakers, postmen and 40 year-olds on an alarmingly regular basis.

But many football fans are resigned to the fact that the FA Cup’s best days have been and gone. Like the indignity of an ageing player trying to hang on to passed glories, the top clubs aren’t interested, no-one seems to take it seriously and judging by this weekend’s attendances, no-one wants to watch it anymore.

The reasons for the cup’s decline are fairly well documented. The cash-rich Champions League is now the real pull for Premier League clubs, who know that qualification for the group stages of the artist formerly known as the European Cup will bring in millions of pounds to club. Any club who is not in Champions League wants to be, and a fair few risk the mere existence of their clubs to get there.

At the other end of the scale, the money lost by crashing out of the Premier League can put clubs in perilous financial positions. For those without designs on Champions League qualification, survival is everything.

Which leaves the FA Cup stranded in no-mans land. Winning it offers a day out in the sun for the fans, and the winners entry into the Europa League. The latter is probably seen by most as more of a punishment than a reward, given that at the last count clubs have to win a minimum of 72 games and jump through numerous fire-tinged hoops to actually lift the trophy.

So what, if anything, can be done to revive the FA Cup? Ex-players and fans have called for the fourth Champions League place to go to the FA Cup winners, and that would certainly get teams taking it seriously again. But it would also mean Premier League clubs would be required to win just six games, possibly against lower league or even amateur teams, to win the right to rub shoulders with the likes of Barcelona and Milan. UEFA are also unlikely to be fans of this route, given that it would also offer the possibility of lower league teams representing England in their premier competition.

Others have suggested increasing the prize money awarded to the winning teams of each tie, and this seems like a much more sensible option. Even Premier League clubs are struggling financially at the moment, and you would imagine most would be more reluctant to field weakened teams in FA Cup matches if they knew a hefty prize was on offer to the winning teams. The smaller clubs would also be more accurately rewarded for heroic giant-killings.

But how many football fans can realistically see either happening? The FA could easily use the vast revenue they receive from England games and lucrative sponsorship deals to provide greater funding to the FA Cup. However, that revenue is now earmarked for the 2018 world cup bid and whether the FA Cup is revived or wilts and dies, the campaign to win the right to host the world cup will always take precedence.

Sadly, it seems the FA Cup will remain a secondary competition for the vast majority of clubs. For Premier League teams either reaching the top four or simply surviving take priority. Whilst those outside of the top division concentrate their efforts on either making it to the Premier League, or merely making it to the end of the week.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The League Cup has seen something of a renaissance in recent years, with big clubs blooding exciting youngsters and sleeping giants like Villa and Manchester City attempting to use it as a stepping stone to greater triumphs.

And even in this weekend’s atrociously attended third round ties, there were shards of light in a very gloomy landscape. Take the Manchester United v Leeds game for example. The game was almost pornographic for the nostalgics amongst us. With United and Leeds kicking lumps out of each other, the pitch cutting up with every tackle and the game broadcast live on ITV on a Sunday afternoon, it was like we’d all squeezed into our Deloreans and gone back in time. In fact, I half expected the TV studio to be staffed by Elton Welsby and Jimmy Greaves, but was disappointed to learn that Steve Ryder was anchoring the coverage instead. Actually, I’m generally disappointed that Steve Ryder is anchoring the coverage – whatever the programme is.

The United game showed that there is still some life in the FA Cup. Not much, but some at least. Both the FA and the clubs have roles to play in making the competition more attractive to the big clubs and fans respectively. The FA needs to somehow convince or even enforce clubs to play their strongest teams, whilst the clubs need to make tickets for cup games affordable in order to drag people away from their warm armchairs and back to their seats in the stadiums.

Yes the magic of the cup is fading, but there can still be life in the old girl yet if we want to save her.