FA Cup replays will be scrapped from next season, the Football Association has announced. This is to ensure that there is an easing of fixture congestion due to Premier League games.
Trying to squeeze all the fixtures into a 2020/21 season shortened due to the 2019/20 coronavirus hiatus will have a huge knock-on effect for the two domestic cup competitions – the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
As a result, the Football Association has agreed to scrap all replays for one season only, even though the third and fourth-round replays are often highly lucrative for lower division clubs as well as often providing big upsets.
However, there is a potential row brewing in English football as it is understood that top clubs have major concerns about the Carabao Cup. Premier League teams in the Champions League and Europa League have been threatening to pull out of the Carabao Cup if they cannot field under-23s teams in the competition next season. They insist that there is simply not enough room in the fixture calendar for their senior teams to play European games and the Carabao Cup.
