FA Cup seeding – why it’s a terrible idea

The sports pages of several of today’s newspapers have reported that the FA are toying with the idea of seeding the top Premier League teams in the FA Cup in order to ‘save’ the competition. Alongside scrapping replays and playing all ties in midweek, the seeding of top sides, according to the FA source, would help to arrest declining attendance, and help ‘restore the magic’ of the tournament

No replays I can accept, and having all ties midweek is something that could be looked at, but why oh why do the FA feel the need to give the top teams yet another safety net? The argument has been made that ensuring that the top teams avoid each other would enable more ‘fairytale’ ties in the early rounds involving smaller clubs against Premier League giants, therefore enabling more cup upsets. In reality, these upsets would likely be few and far between, and the real goal is to enable the bigger sides to progress to the later rounds. Man Utd vs Liverpool is a far greater money spinner in the semi-final rather than the third round.

The greed of the big clubs, and the willingness of competitions to pander to them, is sickening. The ‘Champions’ League has already been adapted time and time again to suit Europe’s top teams (how many sides have competed in the last 16 of the competition over the last 10 years? I’d guess no more than 22, 23). Not only that, but if they do fail to qualify from the group stages, they’re usually parachuted into the Europa League as a back up. What the hell happened to a straight knockout formula? The 70’s and 80’s saw some great finals involving teams such as Nottingham Forest, Hamburg, Club Brugge, Leeds United, Steaua Bucharest, Malmo and St Ettienne; it is almost impossible to imagine clubs like these competing in finals today

The goal is to allow the top teams to remain at the top, and make it as difficult as possible for anyone else to challenge them. Each season, in most of Europe’s top leagues, the winner almost inevitably comes from a select group of 2/3 teams. At a time when (finally) the Premier League is becoming more competitive and therefore more exciting for the fans, the notion that the FA want to help the big clubs to cement their elite status does the fans a great disservice.