The latest round of FA Cup fixtures are over and we now know the identities of all four of the semi-finalists: Manchester United, Manchester City, Bolton and Stoke.
The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that these four teams are from a very similar part of the world, namely the North-West. So the matches should be played somewhere in that vicinity right? Wrong.
No, both semi-final matches will instead be played at Wembley, of course in London. In the South of England. Nowhere near the North-West. So should the fans of these teams have to make this journey, not only for the semi-final but also the final if they get there?
Back in the days of the old Wembley the decision was pretty straight-forward; teams from a similar area would play at a neutral venue in that area. If the teams were in different areas they would meet at a ground roughly equidistant to the 2 clubs. For example, in 1997 Chelsea played Wimbledon at Highbury whereas the year before the Blues had met Manchester United at Villa Park. A simple solution, one might think.
This carried on while the new Wembley was being built but with the final instead being played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. When the new Wembley (finally) opened in 2007 part of the agreement was that all semi-finals and finals were to be played at the new arena. This is where the problems arose.
There are alternatives but these all come with their own problems. For instance, the Manchester derby could be played at nearby Anfield but with the problem being that the capacity is around half that of Wembley. One would assume City and United fans would rather have to travel to the game than not be able to go at all because their allocation is so low. One solution could be that the games be played in Cardiff but, like with London, it is a long way to travel for certain clubs. There would also inevitably be some fans insisting the English FA Cup Final should be played in England.
The inconvenience for fans is not even the only reason that semi-finals at Wembley are so unpopular; there are the old romantics like myself who long for the bygone era when Wembley was Wembley and you only earned the right to play at the famous stadium in the heart of the home of football when you had got to a final. Having the preceding game at Wembley somehow takes some of the shine off the showpiece.
It is clearly a fantastically difficult problem for the organisers to solve as it is impossible to please everyone. However, it would be nice to see a little more consideration paid to the fans that keep the game in existence and the FA suits in, well, suits. And who’s to say the decisions couldn’t be made on a game-by-game basis? It would be difficult to implement but it could surely be done. It must certainly be easier than policing thousands of blood-thirsty and lager-thirsty Mancs on the trains from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston.
Of course, none of this really matters as the FA have signed a contract that states the national stadium will be used for all FA Cup semi-finals for the considerable future. Without this the stadium would not have been able to have been built. With more and more people turning away from football largely because of the money involved in the game, this really is another kick in the teeth for the traditionalists.
No comments:
Post a Comment