Every single competition outside the top division leagues and the UCL has suffered in the last many years, partly because of the further rise of the latter both in terms of growing money and interest, and partly due to serial blunders in vision from the football elites of the type "let's make the FA cup match ball red and move the SFs to Wembley!". International competitions, the FA cup, the league cup and Europa league/UEFA/Cup winners cups... the football authorities have made a meal of it all. Europa league is a disgrace and a disincentive, the domestic cups are zombified affairs, 4th place in the domestic league is considered a major trophy, while international games are synonymous with injury watch. The World cup retains interest purely because it attracts the football ignoramuses who are drawn in to the spectacle and the kumbaya atmosphere, and it too has lost some of its real gloss. What can be done? - Bring back the Cup winners Cup, or send the FA cup winner into qualifying rounds of CL. - Organise EL as a merely preliminary fall/winter season competition, whose say top 4 sides enter UCL at the round of 16. Have 6 UCL groups, top 2 of which advance. plus the 4 from the preliminary EL competition. - Introduce foreign player first-team quota (controversial) - Have lower ranked countries have their own preliminary international qualifying competitions before a handful of them battle it out with the big boys. This shortens the WC/EC qualifying campaigns and makes the matches more relevant. Fixes are potentially various and often inter-related, working in synergy for rejuvenising the other football dimensions, but unfortunately the football hierarchy is haplessly senile and can't see past their warty noses. The hope rests with us, youth and twitter...
The FA are only responsible for football in England and are greedy bastards, they financially rape the game from from the prem right down to the kids in local league's up and down the country and put next too nothing back at grass roots level. Uefa are responsible for international club competitions within Europe as such the English FA don't have a say on which competition the FA Cup winners enter etc. The CWC is dead and gone forever. The winter in eastern Europe and Scandanavia means your second point wouldn't work. The foreigner cap has been tried. Lower ranked European leagues already have to play preliminary/qualifying rounds in Uefa competitions. Even though your sentiment is well meant the reality is the Champions League brings wealth and fame to clubs and will always preference over domestic cups and the Europa League, the EL winners get a place in the CL from next season onwards and that's the only concession Uefa are likely to give to weaker nations and weaker teams from the stronger league's.
Well I guess we're on different wavelengths on this too PMK. Your comebacks to my suggestions don't hold water imo. CWC is gone and can't be revived? Why not? Winter in the European northeast does what? Foreigner cap tried? Why not again? Lower ranked countries do what now? Also, why shouldn't the FA cup winners qualify for CL, if CWC remains dead?
The Cup Winners Cup will never return as a major European contest purely because domestic cup competitions have lower or no value in many European countries. Now then tell us what your proposals are that are going to radically change those impressions.
We rob the FA cup of its European platform and then complain about its diminished glory and reduced appeal? Isn't that a tad hypocritical? As I said, without CWC there is a solution: send the FA cup winner to the CL qualifying round.
European League's in Scandinavia and Russia and Ukraine etc have to have a winter break due to weather and temperature so your suggestion of only playing in autumn(fall)and winter wouldn't work in a European competition, Dave put it perfectly as to why the CWC will never make a comeback.
So if for example a Championship club win the FA Cup(6 games)get a CL qualifiers place you think a premier league club that misses out on GD for a CL place after 38 games and there isn't a problem?
FA Cup needs to have it's own game time, ie not played on same weekend as other games. Needs to be the final game of the season (like they have made it this season) and needs to be on free to air tv like bbc/itv. Ticket prices should have to be reduced to 50% to make sure crowds are full and semi finals should be held at a neutral ground that isn't Wembley. Keep them in the Europa which is fine, which leads me to the next point. Europa - reduce the number of teams in it, 48 teams in the group stages is way too many. Mirror it so it's the same as the CL (8 groups of 4 rather than 12) and stop teams from the CL dropping down into the comp which ends up rewarding failure. Like the idea that the winner now goes into CL to make the prize worth while.
Could do, but don't think should just throw money at everything or could say the same for FA Cup. Europa winners still get in excess of £10m which isn't bad. Plus if you reduced the amount of teams in EL, the money distribution would be higher anyway.
Yeh I just think it needs to have more incentive for teams to want to progress to the latter stages. A combination of a cl spot, more money and no cl teams to face I think would improve the standing of the competition massively. I do like the idea of lowering the number of teams to create more wealth for those competing.
So, a number of things come to mind 1. Fans are the issue, I tried in vain to raise a crumb of interest in the fa cup this year with threads here and nobody cared I was told all that matters is 4th. Look at attendances, they are CRUMMY 2. All fans seem to give a damn about is the league and cl nobody gives a flying f about Europa so the prize for the cup is undesired 3 the league cup seems to raise more interest for clubs now simply due to timing, you can play it around cl group phase easy if the draw is in any way kind and the semis are done in jan well before the cl restarts 4. Managers are an issue, fans know they can not go as they'll not miss a run cos nobody cares 5 the fa cup is a huge issue, the semis this year are a joke they are in effect under the radar. If we look to the European or Spanish model I think we could have to move the cup to midweek football or basically change the tv deal to bundle league and cup together. If you want Sunday football for example you have to take fa cup and it will be on on Sundays and nothing else. 6 I think the fa cup sits right smack in the middle of the run in for relegation and the top of the league. I would be all for moving it earlier to get the run to 5th round earlier especially if we kill off the stupid league cup semis home and away and play neutral venue All in all fans need to make it matter, the fa should enforce reasonable team strengths (allow 5 but not deliberate cheating of fans per wolves a couple years back or arsenal every year) the fa should also elevate the competition by giving it breathing room
