The FA Cup Final should take place after the league season has come to a conclusion or at the very least, not be allowed to clash with the league fixture list.
Having just watched Football Focus, they understandably had to share the coverage between the Final build-up with the likely conclusion to the Premiership title race today. Indeed, their end of coverage montage was of a dominant Manchester United over the years as they move in towards eclipsing Liverpool's 18 league titles. I can understand why they did that but it nevertheless dilutes the prestige and the importance of the FA Cup. Because it is likely that whoever wins the Cup today, be it a first ever giant-killing victory for Stoke or a first major trophy in 35 years for Manchester City, the result will be knocked off the sporting headlines by Manchester United's triumph.
This is not right and the FA are to blame.
FA Incompetence
But it gets worse. At present, the FA are looking at gathering evidence to prove that FIFA corruptly decided on the venue for the 2018 World Cup based in part, on bribery. The FA are also considering abstaining on voting for the next FIFA President in protest at this alleged corruption.
It may well be the case but it can't hide the FA's incompetence in many facets of the game.
Not only the above, but the recent controversy ovber QPR's penalty or lack of it for transfer irregularities has also shown the Football Association up.
Now as a Welsh football fan that supports both Swansea and Cardiff City, it would be easy for me to chastise the fact that QPR weren't deducted points despite having been found guilty last week. But I won't. It wasn't QPR's fault that the decision was made so ridiculously late in the season. Why did the FA decide to make a decision in the last week of the league season? There was no way that they would've taken points away from QPR when doing so could've jepordised their automatic promotion party and there would've been no time for natural justice to prevail for QPR. At the end of the day, they deserved to be promoted because the football they played consistently put them top of the league throughout the season. If sanctions should've been levied on them, then it should've been done earlier in the season to leave them enough time to play football to counter that penalty.
Good Luck Stoke City
So it frustrates me greatly that the FA have again shown this incompetence by allowing today's clash to occur.
But in the meantime, I look forward to what should be a cracking Cup Final encounter.and I'm hoping that Tony Pullis becomes the first Welsh manager to lift the FA Cup in its 139 year history!
More to the point, why has the Premier League - and the Football League, come to think of it - dragged on so long? The FA Cup final was always played round about this time of year to my recollection, but usually a clear week or two after all the other football competitions had closed.
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