2013 FA Cup Final: How Can the FA Act to Halt the Decline of Their Competition?

Guess what? There's an FA Cup Final this weekend!

That's right, hard to believe as it is, there is something else going on in the world of English football other than the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. Okay, so fair enough, his retirement is major news. He is a legendary figure who has managed Manchester United for over a quarter of a century. He has earned the right to dominate the headlines and force every other story out of the limelight.

But I, being as sad as I am, have been watching sports news coverage pretty much solidly for 36 hours now, and whilst the Sir Alex Ferguson story has obviously, and rightly, dominated the headlines, I have seen more mentions of County Cricket scores than the upcoming FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic. And believe me, nobody cares about County Cricket anymore. 

Fergie will undoubtedly be revelling in the attention he has taken away from fierce rivals Manchester City in the days building up to the Wembley showpiece, but it is not good for the FA Cup that it is being so overwhelmed by such a massive story. 

You can hardly blame the FA for the timing of the announcement of Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, but you can pretty much blame them for everything else. And I'm going to right now. 

Why are the FA to blame?

If the FA Cup Final was at the end of the season, like it damn well should be, then the Sir Alex Ferguson story could happily have run up to United's home game against Swansea on Sunday, then throughout all of next week into Manchester United's final game of the season.

In this glorious scenario, the Premier League season would be done and dusted. Sir Alex Ferguson would have said his farewells, and David Moyes would be in place to take over. The media coverage could then switch its attention to the FA Cup Final. 

Right now, however, with Manchester United not playing until Sunday and the FA Cup Final at teatime on Saturday, don't bet against the Sir Alex Ferguson retirement story to still be dominating the headlines come Saturday morning, afternoon and evening. Then if you throw that in together with a busy weekend of Premier League action, it is hard to see how it can possibly be expected to compete. The Sir Alex story is just that important.

The FA obviously has problems with the timing of the final. Since the Champions League Final was moved to a Saturday in 2010, the FA have struggled to find a slot for it, and with the Champions League Final being at Wembley (again) in a couple of weeks time, finding a date for the FA Cup Final must have been difficult.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but the FA needs to fight their corner against the Premier League and get their showpiece match back on its own Saturday on its own weekend at the end of the season. Without it, it has no prominence in the scheduling, and with no prominence in the season's schedule, the World's oldest and greatest cup competition is doomed to decline into nothingness. 

The FA are extremely lucky in that this season they have been blessed with a Manchester City vs Wigan Athletic final. Manchester City can not finish above or below second place in the Premier League now, so they can put everything into the final. If they were still in the title race at this stage, you could bet your life that key players would be rested for the FA Cup Final. 

Roberto Martinez will respect the final in a way that a lot of managers in his current position probably wouldn't, with Wigan's Premier League status in a precarious position to say the least. They are fighting for their lives in the League, and if they did rest the likes of Shaun Maloney, James McCarthy and Arouna Kone with massive games away at Arsenal and at home to Aston Villa coming up within 8 days of the FA Cup Final, you could not blame them.

This should not be the case.

It should be a massive day for Wigan Athletic. They should either be: 

a) safe from the drop with the Premier League season behind them, buzzing with the momentum of surviving relegation once again, or; 

b) getting ready for one last hurrah on the big stage before the drop to the Championship.

They should not be competing in a major cup final whilst still in Premier League limbo. If the FA Cup Final is not going to be at the end of the season, it should not even be close to the end of the season. Have it a couple of weeks ago before the Premier League season's climax.

How can the FA Cup still compete? 

The Premier League and Champions League have put themselves in a position in which they simply have to bow to the pressure from TV about broadcasting times to maximize ratings and advertising revenues and such other things I don't really understand as a simple football fan. They are cash cows if you like. The FA Cup is not, and the FA would do well to remember this. 

The only way the FA Cup can survive in the modern era is if it grounds itself in its own sense of tradition, reveling in it rather than trying to abandon it at every turn. The very nature of the tournament means it will never be able to compete financially with the Premier League and the Champions League. So with this in mind, why is the FA Cup Final kicking off at 5:15 p.m.? (Don't get me started on the effect it has on both sets of fans having to travel back up North on a Saturday night, but then the fans don't matter anymore do they.)

I know this happened last year, but it sickened me then as well. The FA needs to really ask itself if it is worth sabotaging the tradition of the greatest and oldest Cup competition in the world for a slight advantage in the television ratings. 

Furthermore, FA Cup Final day should be entirely dedicated to exactly that; the FA Cup Final. The Sir Alex Ferguson story will still be dominant come the weekend, which is unfortunate for the match, but the fact that there is a huge game between Aston Villa and Chelsea, which has implications at both ends of the table, kicking off at lunchtime on Saturday is another huge blow to the coverage of the final.

In years gone by, the buildup to the FA Cup Final would have started up to a week beforehand, as soon as the Premier League season had ended. This season, the buildup to the game will be starting more like two hours before kick off. Coverage and buildup are some of the most important things before a big game, as it increases people's excitement and anticipation. It is something that has been sorely lacking in recent years.

If you are going to go to all the effort of moving the Premier League games to the next day (inconveniencing thousands of fans around the country as you're doing it), do not bother then leaving the most important one of the weekend on the Saturday afternoon. Just do not have Premier League games on the same day. Period.

What else have the FA managed to mess up?

It is not just the cup final itself that the FA have managed to mess up. They've also managed to sabotage most of the rest of their tournament as well. The semi-finals have to go back to neutral venues. Having semifinals at Wembley completely devalues the concept of a Wembley Final. 

I know the FA need to make as much money as they can to repay whoever it is they need to pay back for the stadium, but isn't that what all those wildly overpriced England friendlies are for? Put the semi-finals back at Old Trafford and Villa Park (teams permitting obviously) and schedule a couple of Bon Jovi concerts or something for Wembley that weekend. That way you can preserve the sanctity of the competition and still make some of your money back. Problem solved. 

There are other little things that just niggle at me as well. Half empty stadiums throughout the country do not help the reputation of the tournament. Fans don't want to pay £30 for a home game against lower league opposition when they're already shelling out unholy sums for season tickets in the first place.

The FA needs to work with clubs to come up with strategies to give incentive to fans to return to the FA Cup, discount tickets, family offers, etc. The FA needs to protect its product, and a product that can't sell out stadiums is not an easy product to sell. 

It doesn't help the cause that ITV and ESPN's coverage of the competition is utterly atrocious, nor does it help when replays get re-scheduled onto the same weekends as the next round, although this is unfortunately at times unpreventable with fixture pile-ups and such. What I can't stand, though, is when the draw for the next round takes place before every game in that round has taken place.

DO NOT do the draw on a Sunday afternoon if there is still a game to play on the Monday night. In fact, get rid of FA Cup games on Monday nights altogether. Cup draws are such a basic enjoyment and such a simple thing to get right, please do not ruin them by having them before half the games in the round have even been played.

Burying your final during the climax of the Premier League season is not going to help, FA. Devaluing its tradition with 5:15 p.m. kick-offs and Wembley semifinals is only going to serve in undermining the competition's grandeur. 

For me, the FA Cup Final day was a day of incredible excitement. This year, the FA Cup Final "early evening" just feels like something of a sideshow to the Sir Alex Ferguson story and the Premier League weekend.

Take pride in your Cup competition. It is the greatest and oldest in the world, ground it in its tradition. Please help to save it. if you don't, there will soon come a time when there is a generation of football fans who are not even aware of how important the competition even used to be. Act now David Bernstein and the FA, before it is too late.