Was scrapping FA Cup replays a watershed moment?
Henry Winter adds his name to those fed up of the Football Association pandering to the whims and needs (of the boards) of the Big 6:
I am also one of these people, but I don’t quite have his pedigree:
Winter is the current Football Journalist of the Year at the British Sports Journalism Awards, where the judges said last month he “has a unique connection to his readership and football fans” and is a “voice of genuine authority and respected by those in the game”.
Winter is also the most recent Writer of the Year at the Football Supporters’ Association Awards.
His authority is long-held: in 2010 he was voted Britain’s top sports journalist in a Press Gazette poll of journalists and the general public.
When people like Henry Winter are (rightfully) getting upset about this untenable situation, then it’s about time the FA start paying attention.
Here’s another veteran football journalist, Alan Biggs:
The fans want replays. The fans love the traditions of the game. But by the end of this evening, it’s quite likely that every English club will have been eliminated from European competition this year, ahead of the semi-final stages, nogal. And we can’t have that happening again, because that means no more money for the Big 6 and the FA, both of whom are really struggling financially, so something else is going to have to change.
And the other 86 clubs and their hundreds of thousands of fans must just deal with it.