Celtic Should Be Highly Resistant To Any Further Changes To Scotland’s Cup Competitions.

One of the things that bothers the modern fan are the constant changes to the game that we have to endure, and one of those things, and a particularly ugly one at that, popped up in England just yesterday; the changes to the FA Cup, which have done away with replays, at the behest of the clubs in the Premiership and a handful of Championships sides.

This is about three things, basically; the Champions League, the TV schedule and the demands of players south of the border. The Champions League is adding two games to the Group Stage schedule; quite how clubs are supposed to deal with those isn’t clear. The other issue is the possibility of teams who have to compete in a play-off tie; don’t forget, only the top eight teams in the Champions League’s new format go through automatically to the “Round of 16.” If you finish 9th to 24th you have to play a two-leg play-off.

So it’s not hard to see where the game could pile up for sides competing at that level; the English clubs are worried that their European aspirations will be dented by too many matches, and that’s one of the reasons for the push-back against FA Cup replays.

The TV schedule faces the same issue; how the Hell are they meant to fit all those games around the possibility that some lower-league side might force a replay if they get the first tie at home? This is the thinking behind the change, and one of the reasons that the reaction to it has been so furious amongst clubs in the Football League.

Where I have sympathy – some – is on the demands all these games put on players. The schedule has gone crazy over the last 20 years and the Champions League changes only make that worse. It’s an absurd situation made worse by the amount of international fixtures being played over the summer, which often gives players no real close-season break.

Still, the big clubs have the money and the squad sizes to cope with this. Or they should have anyway. But in order to protect them, the FA has decided to take away the possibility of replayed games from those in the lower leagues. I think it’s a pretty shocking move, and their outrage over it is very easy to understand and sympathise with.

The SFA removed replays from the Scottish Cup last year, in a similarly disgraceful move. That should be the extent of the changes we allow, and it’s actually one we should want to see rolled back. The real threat is not to the Scottish Cup but to the League Cup; the schedule has already been shuffled about to fit the current schedule and it’s facing another change with the new Champions League scheduling. There are some who would abolish it.

Under no circumstances should our club ever agree to any such thing. Nor any downgrading to the tournament so that clubs are fielding Under 21 players or anything else. Enough has changed about our footballing landscape as it is. We can’t allow any more of it.

I think our players play too many games, but that doesn’t mean that I want to see cup competitions scrapped or changed beyond recognition. I am sure that the club does not either. But you never know what the governing bodies will do, or what they will agree to if the TV companies bounce them towards it. The English FA executive committee are the ones who just changed the FA Cup and the SFA executive committee did the same with the Scottish … this is where the line should be.

Our cup competitions should be sacrosanct. UEFA clearly wants to pile ever more games onto the schedule, but that shouldn’t come at a cost to tournaments we all love. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t trade a domestic treble for two more games in the Champions League; I wouldn’t sacrifice the League Cup or the Scottish Cup for a longer run in Europe.