The Football Association have confirmed their decision to scrap the FA Cup replays next season in order to avoid a potential fixture pile-up.
Tottenham have quite an unforgiving start to the 2020/21 season as they will have to potentially play three Europa League qualifiers sandwiched between their opening Premier League games.
With multiple international breaks also scheduled in the next few months, there is a very real risk of burnout for the players.
The decision has been made to scrap replays and decide drawn matches with extra time and penalties.
A statement released by the FA claimed that the decision was made “to assist in easing pressure on the football schedule and to ensure that domestic competitions can still be delivered”.
Meanwhile, due to the financial impact of the pandemic, the winners of the FA Cup will receive £1.8m, down from £3.6m in the 2019-20 season.
Here is the scheduling of next season’s FA Cup (from the Third Round onwards):
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Third Round Proper – Saturday, January 9, 2021
Fourth Round Proper – Saturday, January 23, 2021
Fifth Round Proper – Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Quarter-Finals – Saturday, March 20, 2021
Semi-Finals – Saturday, April 17, 2021
Final – Saturday, May 15, 2021
Spurs Web Opinion
We will be taking the cup competitions much more seriously next season than we have been under Pochettino for the last few years as Jose will not want to end the season empty-handed. While the scrapping of replays helps avoid potential fatigue, it does make it slightly harder for the bigger teams to go all the way since it is always easy for lower league clubs to pull off upsets in one-off games.
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