CUP DOWNGRADE

There seems little doubt that Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert's recent comments about club priorities, involving the Premiership and the FA Cup, were taken out of context by some over-excited sections of the media. After all, and from a purely financial perspective, he merely stated the obvious. The retention of Premiership status, in cash terms, is worth far more than the profits gained from reaching a Wembley final. Nevertheless, it is also difficult to disagree with an underlying feeling that for the last few seasons many Premiership clubs have been quietly downgrading the world's most famous knock-out competition.
If you need reasons then look at the bloated size of many of the Premiership fixture lists and playing staffs and remember, at the same time, that most of the old, regular reserve team league competitions (the Football Combination?) have been swept away. Thus many players not turning out regularly in the first team spend much of their time at the training ground or on the bench instead of maintaining actual match fitness. An FA Cup-tie against a lowlier club thus provides a handy opportunity to pop in a few reserves in desperate need of an outing. Nowadays, it is known as 'squad rotation.'
Why have so many fixtures and such big squads in the first place? A number of reasons, I think: (a) a proliferation of European competitions; (b) some of these clubs can actually afford big squads; and (c) because they are allowed to use so many substitutes per match (meaning that you don't need eleven players on match days any more, you need 18). Which brings me to the next point. When were football fans actually asked if they wanted their game changed from a team game to a squad game? I don't remember a vote, or even a consultation. It just happened, or was quietly made to happen. The game slithered into 'squadism' without much thought.
Pressures to allow a substitute began to inflate in the late 1950s and 1960s because of a series of injuries to players most noticeably in FA Cup Finals. The season's major spectacle was being spoiled. So, finally, reluctant domestic legislators were persuaded to make the change.
At first, a single player substitution was allowed, but only if another on-field player was injured. Of course, it didn't take coaches long to cotton on to the fact that if they wanted to make a change, anyway, all they had to do was give the nod for the selected on-field player to sit down on the pitch, rub his knee, thigh or ankle, and put on a pained expression. Thus the referee had no course but to wave the substitute on.
Naturally, it all became a bit of a farce, and the 'injury rule' approach became unsustainable. By the time the feigning of injury had become ingrained in the game the rules were changed again. Now you could make a change at any time. Then two changes, and then three. Meanwhile, the choice of allowable possible alternatives on the bench rose to seven. So football was no longer a team game, but a squad game, and pretending to be injured had become a tradition.
Perhaps some of the Premiership clubs really should become bolder and, if the Cup is such a terrible bind for them, seek to withdraw completely from the competition. But of course, they daren't. Ask most football fans which they would prefer their club to win - the FA Cup, or a European competition - and my bet (sorry, I'm against all betting in a sporting context) is that most would vote for the FA Cup every day of the week.