15 Feb 2026 17:24:35
I am going to sound like an old man here, but the FA Cup should not be behind a paywall. It should be the gateway to get kids in love with the sport, the 'water cooler' conversation and celebrated as the oldest cup competition. Instead, it's hidden away (for most) and put down the pecking order as a distraction. Sky sports didn't even have it as its headline earlier!
I see people online complaining it isn't cared about any more. Well a big part of that is access to it, make it feel special by allowing as many people to watch it.
And while I'm on the topic of FA Cup, make the final the all day, season closer, it felt like 15-20 years ago. It felt like every football fan had it in their calendar regardless of teams involved. Now, it's sidelined due to the money in the game. Hopefully something changes before it's seen in the same light as the league cup, although it's a long way being seem like that anyway.
15 Feb 2026 18:04:49
I think the biggest thing that has happened to the FA Cup is that years ago there wasn't much live football on TV, so FA Cup final day was massive as there was coverage all day leading up to the game. Regardless, if your team was in it r not, u were glued to it all day.
15 Feb 2026 18:20:04
Clubs, unfortunately, started fielding weakened teams in the FA Cup a long time ago, and that's been a major kick in the nuts for the competition.
15 Feb 2026 18:21:50
I agree. Not Anfield, obviously, but I've noticed all the half-empty stadiums all over the country this round of the cup, also.
15 Feb 2026 18:33:21
Totally, LiverpoolFC8, with Hill Dickinson being the biggest culprit.
{Ed025's Note - i dont know how you work that out Thunderbird? the Hill Dickinson is sold out every game...bitter much i think..
15 Feb 2026 18:52:56
Imo, the FA Cup appeared to lose its grandeur when Manchester United pulled out of it; they refused to field weaker teams. It happened when they returned from playing the Club World Cup; they deemed there was insufficient time for recuperation. However, it should be noted that Real Madrid had less time for recuperation (I believe 24 hrs less), yet played.
As far as I'm aware, no fuss was made, although, if memory serves me correctly (or more knowledgeable ppl), Fergie was the driver of the pull out; from that point the FA Cup lost its special status.
15 Feb 2026 19:46:47
Manchester United tarnished the FA Cup when they moaned about it because they had to go to the World Club Championship, and the FA, being the cowards that they are, allowed them to miss it. Don't think it's ever felt the same to the big clubs since.
15 Feb 2026 20:00:54
I don't have an issue with teams fielding weaker teams, there needs to be rotation. However, you don't take the pee like Slot did last season. Early rounds can be managed. Although, it does annoy me when the mid tablers do it; what else is there to go for? Personally, the FA Cup was huge as a kid.
And I think it's exactly that digger, football was rare, or rare for most. Before Sky was commonplace. It was our way to watch stars we wouldn't normally watch. Hopefully TNT lose the rights and it heads back to BBC/ITV and the country can treat it like the special trophy it is.
15 Feb 2026 20:09:26
Get the camera crews on the bus as the teams head to Wembley, like the good old days. Can't imagine the modern day players are as interesting as the old guard, though.
15 Feb 2026 21:29:38
In fairness, a front three of Diaz, Jota and Chiesa should be enough to beat Plymouth. With other internationals like Endo, Tsimikas, Gomez and Kelleher named as well, along with a coupla kids everyone wants to see getting chances.
15 Feb 2026 21:43:11
Well, I'm going to blame the money in the game - specifically the Premier League and the Champions League. The FA Cup could never compete once it became such a multibillion-pound industry.
{Ed025's Note - im with you Ron..
15 Feb 2026 21:56:01
Tell you what I've always thought damaged the FA Cup. All the corporate tickets for the final. I think at one point it was 25k tickets each for the 2 sets of fans. Ridiculous, really.
15 Feb 2026 22:05:30
The same should be true for international sports, the Cricket World Cup, for example. Alas, money makes the world go round.
15 Feb 2026 22:13:12
The Hill Dickinson had empty seats because Everton are already out of the cup. ??♂️
{Ed025's Note - fair point..
16 Feb 2026 00:08:33
Agree, @Ron. Good to see a good old fashioned FA Cup pitch for the Grimsby v Wolves game - a good long time since I've seen a PL side not playing on a carpet. I have to say that I was particularly keen to see how Mane went, given his strong following on here.
I have to say, I didn't see much to warrant the need for a box of Kleenex. Must have caught him on a bad day.
16 Feb 2026 09:10:19
@WYred, when you see that in 2018 Chelsea did not make the top 4 and Willian said that he would rather make the top 4 than win the FA Cup before the FA Cup final vs United, that just tells you all you need to know about the state of the FA Cup in the eyes of players, clubs, and even many fans of this era.
It is what it is.
16 Feb 2026 10:03:18
When I was a child the biggest day of the year was FA Cup day. I would be up with the lark and out kicking a football, then come in when the start of the TV coverage began, and I would sit there until it was all over.
I did not care who the teams were; I just enjoyed the day so much.Nowadays I will only watch if Liverpool are in the final; it is just not the same. It has dropped below the League Cup, which gets more coverage.YNWA.
{Ed025's Note - im with you Albey..
16 Feb 2026 10:19:49
I'm going to sound like a big fat meanie, but if fans want to keep demanding that their clubs build bigger stadiums, buy more expensive players and pay more out in silly wages, then ultimately, we as the football fanbase reap what we sow. Football will keep moving behind bigger and bigger paywalls until the crazy money involved stops increasing exponentially.
Yet, when club owners try to run things responsibly and spend less/pay less, the fans get on the owners' backs. You can't have your cake and eat it. If you want to see players like Wirtz and Isak signing for 250m, pay your Sky/TNT Sports subscriptions and get over it. Anyway, I told you I was going to be a big fat meanie!
16 Feb 2026 12:18:32
You may be a big fat meanie, MKS. But, unfortunately, you are a correct big fat meanie. Money makes the world go round, and owners cannot just fund clubs like a plaything anymore; otherwise, Newcastle would be the Madrid of the EPL, full of Galacticos. It is a sorry state of affairs within the industry, but it is what it is.
Football has become a business: some things have become better, some are to its detriment. Football sells, fans pay. Without fans, football is nothing. But, unfortunately, we are all replaceable by another bank card in the eyes of the very people running the game.
16 Feb 2026 12:25:55
Sky TV brought the big money into the game. Agents saw an opportunity. It became a race to see who could spend the most. Fans don't demand silly wages; most fans feel disgusted by the wages. Agents and players demand the wages, and the money essentially comes from TV subscriptions.
16 Feb 2026 12:42:32
Ron Keague, that's simply not true, though, is it? I've seen many people on here moan about us not paying the wages to keep players. People spent all of last season complaining that we let the Salah, Virgil and Trent negotiations drag on. "Just pay them the going rate" was bordering on a universal viewpoint and a huge stick used to beat Hughes with. Spurs fans are currently at loggerheads with their ownership for not breaking their wage structure to try and compete. In the January window just gone, people were livid that we didn't sign a fourth right back to cover injuries. Others were livid we let Guehi go to Man City instead of paying the GBP20m early, instead of waiting six months to get him for free. Others were bemoaning that we didn't match Man City's offer (fee and wages) for Semenyo. I think you might be burying your head in the sand a bit; if you can't accept that fan pressure is a huge part of the reason for the costs of running a football club increasing, even if you want to argue that the fans applying pressure has no significant impact on the decision making at clubs, you still can't deny that posts like this are very hypocritical.
We'll moan when the clubs are not throwing money around for fun, but also moan that the price of following football is increasing. Go figure! Agents are the biggest issue, I totally agree on that. They bleed far too much money out of the game. But we have to own our part in this as football fans, or as a bare minimum, be mindful that we're subconsciously contradicting ourselves at times. The reason why the English Premier League teams can afford to spend so much money compared to most teams around the rest of Europe is because of these massive TV deals. If we want to live in a world where Florian Wirtz will choose to sign for Liverpool over Bayern Munich because we offered GBP116m and GBP200k/week, then there's really not much we can moan about.
16 Feb 2026 16:06:42
What is it with playing the semi-finals at Wembley? Also the 5:00 k.o.? As was said above, Cup Final Grandstand would start at 12:00, and I would watch every second of it even if Liverpool weren't in it.
1987 Cup Final, Spurs v Coventry, what a final that was, or United, with my brother and me shouting for Everton. Now, unless Liverpool are in the final, I won't watch it, and it shouldn't be like that.
16 Feb 2026 19:37:44
MK, but if we never had Sky money /sponsorship, then we'd have to produce the next Dalglish, Rush. In this day n age, Rush would still be in the old 3rd division because no one would take a chance on him when there is a shiny foreign player to choose from. I reckon there are plenty of Vardys languishing in the lower leagues.
17 Feb 2026 07:30:07
I remember having a street party for the 1971 Cup Final, which we lost to Arsenal. I was only young, but I remember the party starting at the same time as the match. I remember all the dads coming out at the end of the game, drinking home brew, mostly to drown their tears. My dad was smiling, though, because he was a Blue.