FA chief ponders cup rejig

Posted Friday, February 26, 2010 by PA

The FA Cup could become primarily a midweek competition, with Football Association chief executive Ian Watmore admitting something needs to be done to make the competition "more relevant".

Watmore is keen to retain the third round as an "iconic" weekend event but would not rule out moving other rounds of the competition - including the final itself.

"One of the things we've found is that some of the best games and FA Cup nights happen midweek and not at weekends, as we saw last night," he told talkSPORT on Thursday.

"It means that with some rounds it may be better to look at midweek fixtures rather than weekends. The third-round weekend, the first week in January, is one of those iconic weekends of the football calendar and I wouldn't want to mess with that.

"We've also looked at all sorts of ideas with the prize fund, with the scheduling of the game, to try and make them not clash as much with the busy periods of Champions League and Premier League."

Watmore said he and the chairman of the FA Cup committee Mark Collins had been brainstorming ideas about revamping the competition.

Asked whether an evening kick-off would be considered for the final, Watmore added: "If we're going to look at the whole of the FA Cup tournament then we should look at the whole of it, not say 'we're not going to look at this sacred cow or that sacred cow'.

"The FA Cup final on the second or third Saturday in May at 3pm is a fantastic day so I wouldn't want to mess with that for any reason. But if there's a really good reason to change some of the format and to bring to back to the sort of glory [that it had] when you or I were growing up then why not?"