Matt Maher: FA can’t afford to forget about early Cup ties

The reaction to news clubs below the National League might find themselves left out of next season’s FA Cup was unsurprisingly fierce.

‘Scandalous’ was how Stourbridge chairman Andy Pountney chose to describe the notion and there are no doubt others who might choose to use even stronger language.

Of course, Pountney knows better than most just how valuable the FA Cup is to non-league football.

Since Stourbridge first reached the first round proper in 2009 they have been a club transformed – the prize money gained from four subsequent trips to the second round and 2017’s remarkable run to the third is measured in the hundreds of thousands.

Further down the pyramid, the sums gained by other clubs have been smaller, but no less significant. Many base their whole campaign around qualifying for the following year’s FA Cup, while the structure – and size – of the prize fund means ties won in August can pay the costs of an entire season.

It is a competition where success can be transformative for clubs before the giant killers who grab the headlines in later, televised rounds have even kicked a ball. As Pountney succinctly summed it up, the competition is ‘the lifeblood of non-league football’.

Even the FA’s fiercest critics would accept they have a logistical nightmare on their hands when trying to organise next season’s competition, at a time when it remains unclear just how and when this year’s will be completed.

Neither can anyone say for sure when the conditions will be safe for non-league football to resume.

The decision to expunge the season for every division in step three downward, meanwhile, means it is also unclear which clubs have actually qualified to enter the first of six qualifying rounds which, under normal circumstances, would begin in August.

Every discussion involving any football competition is currently characterised by mistrust, paranoia and the fear of setting precedents.

Why else do you think the EFL, despite acknowledging they are battling a colossal financial crisis, remain hell bent on imposing the additional blow of relegation on clubs like Tranmere, who were unfortunate to find themselves in the wrong place when the sport was suddenly halted in early March?

It is easy to see why the FA might reason holding a shortened FA Cup next season is better than not having the competition at all.

But it is the same reasoning which has non-league clubs worrying if they are cut out of the equation for one season, they might not get back in the next. With revenues having already evaporated during an extended shutdown, missing out on the chance to boost income with a Cup run would represent another hefty blow.

Perhaps a compromise can be found in the finances. The bulk of the Cup’s prize fund remains weighted on the later rounds with nearly £10million distributed for the semi-finals and final alone. Maybe, in a scenario where there is simply no alternative but to shorten the competition, that need not be the case.

Hope remains the situation will improve and the FA Cup can run as close to normal as possible. But if it can’t and a shorter, inferior format is required, the FA must ensure the needs of those clubs who typically depend most on the competition are not forgotten.