If the fa cup winners were given a champions league spot then the cup would become important again.
Never going to happen though.
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Never going to happen though.
Post #5 of this thread.
So there's two questions there, right?
1. How do you structure the competitions and divvy up the money?
and
2. How do you create the political coalitions to make that happen?
Dealing with #2 first, shit, maybe it's impossible. We have the game we have because the biggest handful of European clubs have either formally captured or informally bribed and corrupted all the levers of power in the game. Their aim is to centralize the game into a pan-European Super League that the megabrands maintain automatic entry to. They will destroy our game if a countervailing force isn't created, so while I don't exactly know how, it is imperative to figure it out. Fans have everything at stake, but you reach a certain point and the players and their agents have a lot at stake too (depressing wages is a major goal of the club ownership class), so maybe there's a potential coalition there, as well as all the clubs that will be left for dead.
In terms of #1, I have nine million ideas, but the thing you need to strike at the heart of is that durable mini-league of super clubs that have a stranglehold on all the CL revenue. Some of the fixes are obvious. The market pool element of CL revenue that automatically gives more money to teams from bigger leagues have always been absurd, and the new coefficient pool that rewards teams that are already richer and more successful is even worse. And the structure that takes 4 teams from all of the top leagues means the superclubs are all but guaranteed to be in the group stages every single year.
I would say bring back the old European Cup format, maybe make it at most open to two teams per league, but one would be better. Then bring back the Cup Winners Cup and make the Europa League the sprawling, expansive tournament that then features a ton of the top brands. Take the entire TV contract for those events and divvy up the shares and pay them directly to the UEFA associations, not the clubs.
(Maybe there's some way for the San Marino's to get less, but the Belgium's and Greece's should not be getting less)
It's UEFA who call the shots on qualification, not the domestic FA/PL
3.01 UEFA member associations (hereinafter associations) may enter a certain number of clubs for the competition through their top domestic championship, in accordance with the association coefficient rankings, drawn up in accordance with Annex D. No more than four clubs may qualify for the competition through each domestic championship. These rankings also determine the associations’ positions in the access list ( Annex A), which in turn determines the stage at which each club enters the competition.
3.02 Associations are represented on the following basis:
- one representative: winner of the top domestic championship;
- two representatives: winner and runner-up of the top domestic championship;
- three representatives: winner, runner-up and third-placed club in the top domestic championship;
- four representatives: winner, runner-up, third- and fourth-placed clubs in the top domestic championship.
Basically no tickets for 'normal' fans.
Long overdue in both cases.
Now, if you really want to kick it up a notch, bracket the last 64 like the NCAA tournament and have people fill out brackets in office pools like in the US. I am convinced the FA Cup would rocket back to prominence if they did this.
Now, if you really want to kick it up a notch, bracket the last 64 like the NCAA tournament and have people fill out brackets in office pools like in the US. I am convinced the FA Cup would rocket back to prominence if they did this.
I think the random draw is really cool. I wish people cared more about the cups. But they don't.
Giving people a person stake in games not involving their own team would change that. NFL fantasy football is another perfect example of that.
It could. The FA is free to do that whenever they like.
I was skeptical about the effect that would have on the Europa League, but it has done more than I expected.
Football fans should do more to advocate for the cups, instead of just blithely observing that their club is forced into zombie-like pursuit of revenue and is therefore making a rational decision by dismissing the cups. Change the financial incentives!
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How do you think that would change things?
I guess last year it would mean that Woolwich get CL, but do you think they would have tried harder?
Liverpool was already guaranteed CL football by the time they mailed it in so hard to see how they would have cared more. City made the SF and also had CL guaranteed so not sure they would have tried any harder. Chelsea made the final so not sure they could have given more of an effort. United made the semi's and lost to Chelsea, maybe you could argue that would have them take it more seriously but really losing to Chelsea in the SF isn't exactly shameful.
That maybe leaves us, Leicester, Wolves as teams that could have used it for CL and arguably didn't take it seriously enough. But even if those 3 teams did take it more seriously they could easily have still gone out early.
In most years it is still the big clubs making it to the final, clubs that already have CL wrapped up.
Making the FA Cup a guaranteed CL might make the 4th-7th place teams take it more seriously but even if they do if City want to win they have shown they can and will. So that just makes the FA Cup spot go to another team.
Nah. That would be a Uefa decision to make..... CL is their comp as is EL (which why that got granted a CL spot as part of the prize)... The FA don't have duristiction over the qualification criteria.
Like what (in practical terms)....?
In what way?
....Surely just upping the prize money is merely buying into the paper-chase you understandably just criticised?[/quote][/quote]
Just reading about; I can't see anything definitive...... It seems the EL spots seem to aheva little flexibility to them give the variying situations with a countries respective domestic cups, but I'd be extremely surprised find Uefa would conceed such control and flexibility over their flagship competition... Particularly given how they cook the co-efficient points and rankings to favour the established 'big names'.
...Following from above; you'd also be asking the EPL to concede to the interests of the FA (it's not in the EPL's interested for their clubs to take the domestics more seriously.
I'd be interested to read anything that definitively clears this up, mind.
Doesn't that effectively happen to whatever degree though... Let's face; just using this place as a snapshot there's far from a unanimous outlook so it's hard for a supporters group to comprehensively go to bat on just one p.o.v's behalf.
I don't disagree, but I think the damage has already been done (I don't think we get to put the genie back into the bottle - What was once a game is now a multi-£billion industry) and these day's all but the richest and well resourced clubs are forced to priorities their efforts towards one competition or another....
Klopp's a perfect example... People have falling over themselves to jerk off over his current Liverpool team yet he's been throwing the domestics since he arrived.
Then more generally look at 3/4s of the EPL for example... Their league business is their bread and butter (how many will honestly risk relegation for a punt at a cup?) and for even a number of those contesting to be regulars in the top 6 places there are pressures which dictate that too much of a drop off in the league is a lot to weigh up against the chance of a cup which mainly only the old skool fans give a shit about.....
Look at the financials in the champo.... A large % of the teams are playing russian-roulette in the name of an EPL spot.....
Seconded. I swear I've read this before but I cannot find it either.
Yeah you're right, so there's two options.
1. Organically make the FA Cup a more valuable property. I know it seems crazy but I cannot emphasize enough how much money and interest flows to college basketball from those stupid paper bracket forms.
or failing that
2. Have the leadership of the game change the financial incentives.
You're correct to say saving the League Cup is not something that resonates with a lot of fans. But on a more general basis fans HATE the financial centralization of the game into a handful of clubs. I think that latent anger would benefit from a more concrete set of aims to reverse the damage that has been done. Rescuing domestic cups doesn't do all of that work, but I think it would make an obvious part of that platform.
I genuinely have no idea what this means... By all means flesh out your point if you can be arsed.
or failing that
Again, bit more meat needed on the bones here.....
....But broadly; ad income and sponsorship of EPL & CL dwarfs anything the FA or Caraboa (FFS!) can muster. I have no idea how you begin to address that as it requires EPL & Eufa to relinquish a huge amount of a pie they already own.
Maybe I am relying on the past year too much but I don't see how that would change much.
Liverpool- didn't care about top 3 since they knew they were getting it through the league so doubtful they try any harder
City- had CL wrapped up and put out a decent side in the SF- I doubt they change anything since they already had top 3 wrapped up
United- Made SF's, had a fairly strong side in SF, likely top 3 team at the time of the game hard to see much they change
Chelsea- made finals, hard to see them changing much, maybe a little more energy in the final since they would have needed to win it for CL but they made the finals not much more could have been done
Woolwich- won it so hard to see them changing the approach
Now we get to a few teams that maybe would have changed:
Spurs- obviously a weakened team but we were dealing with injuries and had Jose that supposedly takes these Cups seriously, maybe some small changes but not much likely
Leicester- went out to Chelsea with a fairly strong line-up, also trying to maintain their top 3 position
Wolves- went out to United in a tough draw, not sure they could do much more
Anyone else is not good enough to win it no matter what they do. They need luck the same as they do now. Making it a CL spot doesn't change anything for them.
Maybe dropping the CL spot to the team that advances furthest if the winners already have it helps make teams push harder to advance, but I am not sure it would have much of a difference on the winner or even SF.
Liverpool- didn't care about top 3 since they knew they were getting it through the league so doubtful they try any harder
City- had CL wrapped up and put out a decent side in the SF- I doubt they change anything since they already had top 3 wrapped up
United- Made SF's, had a fairly strong side in SF, likely top 3 team at the time of the game hard to see much they change
Chelsea- made finals, hard to see them changing much, maybe a little more energy in the final since they would have needed to win it for CL but they made the finals not much more could have been done
Woolwich- won it so hard to see them changing the approach
Now we get to a few teams that maybe would have changed:
Spurs- obviously a weakened team but we were dealing with injuries and had Jose that supposedly takes these Cups seriously, maybe some small changes but not much likely
Leicester- went out to Chelsea with a fairly strong line-up, also trying to maintain their top 3 position
Wolves- went out to United in a tough draw, not sure they could do much more
Anyone else is not good enough to win it no matter what they do. They need luck the same as they do now. Making it a CL spot doesn't change anything for them.
Maybe dropping the CL spot to the team that advances furthest if the winners already have it helps make teams push harder to advance, but I am not sure it would have much of a difference on the winner or even SF.
Good idea. Shove it back a couple of months, let the Covid vaccines get out there.