February 22, 2016
LONDON (AP) — World football's oldest cup competition isn't aging well. Once, FA Cup fixtures were highlights on the English calendar. For many teams, it now seems an inconvenient distraction. Not even a trip to Chelsea was enough to convince Manchester City to take the competition seriously on Sunday. City's weakened lineup, packed with youngsters even the club's fans would struggle to identify, was the latest blow to the cup's prestige.
The 5-1 humiliation was little surprise once the teamsheets were distributed. It could take a long time for the confidence of City's losing youngsters to recover. Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink did not revel in City's misery. The Dutchman was, instead, mournful about the undermining of the cup he grew up watching.
"It's the temple of football," said Hiddink, who won the cup during his first spell as Chelsea manager in 2009. "If the FA Cup winning is beautiful worldwide, so we must be careful not to devalue this (competition)."
That's just what City did to prioritize the Champions League, a competition it started playing in only five years ago. City blamed the need to target resources at Wednesday's game at Dynamo Kiev. But Manuel Pellegrini's team would not have rested its strongest players had Sunday's game been a Premier League encounter, and should have a strong enough squad to fight on multiple fronts.
"If we continue in the FA Cup we don't have the time, if the games are postponed, to play (them) from now until the end of the season," Pellegrini said. "We have an option for the first time in our club to try to reach the quarterfinal of the Champions League, (and) with 13 players (injured) it's not our priority. It's a sensible decision."
Winning the FA Cup is worth less than 4 million pounds ($6 million). City collected 46 million euros ($51 million) just for reaching the round of 16 of the Champions League last season. But can the club afford to be so blase?
City went 35 years without winning a major honor before an Abu Dhabi-funded reboot of a mid-ranking club led to FA Cup glory in 2011. It lacks the history of silverware to match ambitions to become one of the world's biggest teams and catch up with English football's most successful team: Neighbor Manchester United.
United's relationship with the FA Cup, though, is more troubled than City's. When United withdrew from the 1999-2000 competition to throw its resources at the Club World Cup in Brazil, the FA Cup was undermined at the expense of an upstart competition where participation was about furthering English power within FIFA.
The FA sacrificed the integrity of its competition for the sake of futile brownnosing with an organization now shown to have been rife with corruption. Now the FA remains on a constant PR offensive, trying to convince the world the so-called "magic of the cup" endures. Dubai-based airline Emirates was still convinced to sign a three-year sponsorship from this season worth 30 million pounds ($42 million).
But Arsenal, the team sponsored by Emirates, doesn't seem to value the competition so highly. Despite chasing a third consecutive FA Cup title, Arsene Wenger prioritized the Champions League round of 16 game against Barcelona on Tuesday, and saw a much-changed lineup held by second-tier Hull to 0-0 on Saturday.
Perhaps losing like City would have been more preferable, given that Arsenal has to find the space for a replay in its congested schedule. Winning the FA Cup still carries more kudos than lifting the League Cup, which doesn't feature non-league teams like the FA Cup. But the League Cup is over by February — Liverpool faces Manchester City in the final on Sunday at Wembley — rather than dragging on to the end of May like the FA Cup.
And the ultimate prize is the same for both cups: A place in the Europa League. The much-touted solution to elevating the status of the FA Cup is handing a Champions League place to the winner. "It would add luster to the competition," FA chief executive Martin Glenn said last week. "You can't solve things in isolation. It's a Rubik's Cube. That might be one possibility, Of course, running the FA, I'd love it.
"It just needs to be set up and weighed up against all the other criteria and the desires of the competition owners, the Premier League." And the Premier League will not readily sacrifice one of its four guaranteed Champions League places, and no additional spot will be offered by UEFA.
For now, too often the 145-year-old FA Cup resembles a glorified competition for reserve teams. And when even lower-league teams rest first-choice players, the FA knows it has a fight on its hands to make its cup a prize worth chasing.
LONDON (AP) — World football's oldest cup competition isn't aging well. Once, FA Cup fixtures were highlights on the English calendar. For many teams, it now seems an inconvenient distraction. Not even a trip to Chelsea was enough to convince Manchester City to take the competition seriously on Sunday. City's weakened lineup, packed with youngsters even the club's fans would struggle to identify, was the latest blow to the cup's prestige.
The 5-1 humiliation was little surprise once the teamsheets were distributed. It could take a long time for the confidence of City's losing youngsters to recover. Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink did not revel in City's misery. The Dutchman was, instead, mournful about the undermining of the cup he grew up watching.
"It's the temple of football," said Hiddink, who won the cup during his first spell as Chelsea manager in 2009. "If the FA Cup winning is beautiful worldwide, so we must be careful not to devalue this (competition)."
That's just what City did to prioritize the Champions League, a competition it started playing in only five years ago. City blamed the need to target resources at Wednesday's game at Dynamo Kiev. But Manuel Pellegrini's team would not have rested its strongest players had Sunday's game been a Premier League encounter, and should have a strong enough squad to fight on multiple fronts.
"If we continue in the FA Cup we don't have the time, if the games are postponed, to play (them) from now until the end of the season," Pellegrini said. "We have an option for the first time in our club to try to reach the quarterfinal of the Champions League, (and) with 13 players (injured) it's not our priority. It's a sensible decision."
Winning the FA Cup is worth less than 4 million pounds ($6 million). City collected 46 million euros ($51 million) just for reaching the round of 16 of the Champions League last season. But can the club afford to be so blase?
City went 35 years without winning a major honor before an Abu Dhabi-funded reboot of a mid-ranking club led to FA Cup glory in 2011. It lacks the history of silverware to match ambitions to become one of the world's biggest teams and catch up with English football's most successful team: Neighbor Manchester United.
United's relationship with the FA Cup, though, is more troubled than City's. When United withdrew from the 1999-2000 competition to throw its resources at the Club World Cup in Brazil, the FA Cup was undermined at the expense of an upstart competition where participation was about furthering English power within FIFA.
The FA sacrificed the integrity of its competition for the sake of futile brownnosing with an organization now shown to have been rife with corruption. Now the FA remains on a constant PR offensive, trying to convince the world the so-called "magic of the cup" endures. Dubai-based airline Emirates was still convinced to sign a three-year sponsorship from this season worth 30 million pounds ($42 million).
But Arsenal, the team sponsored by Emirates, doesn't seem to value the competition so highly. Despite chasing a third consecutive FA Cup title, Arsene Wenger prioritized the Champions League round of 16 game against Barcelona on Tuesday, and saw a much-changed lineup held by second-tier Hull to 0-0 on Saturday.
Perhaps losing like City would have been more preferable, given that Arsenal has to find the space for a replay in its congested schedule. Winning the FA Cup still carries more kudos than lifting the League Cup, which doesn't feature non-league teams like the FA Cup. But the League Cup is over by February — Liverpool faces Manchester City in the final on Sunday at Wembley — rather than dragging on to the end of May like the FA Cup.
And the ultimate prize is the same for both cups: A place in the Europa League. The much-touted solution to elevating the status of the FA Cup is handing a Champions League place to the winner. "It would add luster to the competition," FA chief executive Martin Glenn said last week. "You can't solve things in isolation. It's a Rubik's Cube. That might be one possibility, Of course, running the FA, I'd love it.
"It just needs to be set up and weighed up against all the other criteria and the desires of the competition owners, the Premier League." And the Premier League will not readily sacrifice one of its four guaranteed Champions League places, and no additional spot will be offered by UEFA.
For now, too often the 145-year-old FA Cup resembles a glorified competition for reserve teams. And when even lower-league teams rest first-choice players, the FA knows it has a fight on its hands to make its cup a prize worth chasing.
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