changes

[martinthemiller1968]

How is it when we play in the toytown cup the fa say we have to play a strong team or get into trouble. But yesterday hull made 9 changes and today west ham seem to have put the youth team out with couple of 1st teamers seems mighty unfair to me :?

[redandgreen]

Because the FA are cowards and are the servants of the Premiersh*t

[martinthemiller1968]

you can bet them west ham fans(and there seems to brought quite a few)have paid good money to watch what is basically the u21 team.

[millertop]

Different cup different rules

[GrumpyKingOfTheWest]

Because the Football League Trophy is nothing to do witb the Football Association. The Football League and the FA are two distinct organisations.

[CrackersATM]

The FA is very weak and has been dictated to by the Premier League clubs now for years. The FA Cup needs gripping. At the moment the winning club earns £1.8M, I would increase this to £10M (£5M to runners up) plus the winners have a Champions League qualifying spot instead of 4th in the Premier League (Premier League gets an extra Europa League spot). In theory crowds would rise and competitive games would be more attractive to TV companies for future TV rights. The Premier League clubs would have to vote to lose the Champions League spot for 4th place. But as only 7 teams max have any chance of a top 4 finish the other 13 clubs can only gain.

UTM!

[CAMiller]

For about 15 years, starting in 1968 I lived and breathed the FA Cup and it certainly met it's billing as the World's "best cup competition" where it seemed to mean everything to players and fans alike.

30 years on and what do we have today, a competition that seems to mean little to fans (if some of yesterday's gates are anything to go by) and the bigger clubs putting out their 2nd strings because the PL and Europe are more important.

I don't have the answer, maybe just scrap it and or the League Cup and replace them with either a winter break or extended playoffs at the end of the season.