Kwesi Appiah Voices His Opinion On The New FA Cup Format

Kwesi Appiah has been up and down the English footballing divisions with various clubs, playing both in the respective leagues and the magic of the FA Cup. The former AFC Wimbledon and Cambridge United striker sat down with us to talk about what playing in the FA Cup is really like and what needs to be done to make it better in the future.

With the average fan so used to the FA Cup starting just after Christmas with the Third Round Proper being when teams from both the Premier League and Championship play their first match in the competition, those in the divisions below have already started their FA Cup campaigns a long while before that.

“You get a lot of the higher ranked teams complaining about how many games are being played, blah blah blah. You wanna try starting the FA Cup in July?”

Boreham Wood had put in the work to qualify for this year’s edition of the FA Cup but unfortunately fell at the first hurdle when facing League One side Leyton Orient who are three divisions higher up the English league pyramid.

All the key moments in Sunday's narrow loss in the @EmiratesFACup 🎥#WeAreTheWood
— Boreham Wood FC (@BOREHAM_WOODFC) November 5, 2024

That match ended 2-2 after 90 minutes thanks to a late equaliser from Kwesi’s teammate Charlie O’Connell with just five minutes left on the clock. It was announced before the start of this season that the FA Cup would be scrapping the notion of replays which was meet with much distain as reportedly, only the Premier League teams were consulted on the matter, a real kick in the face to the 72 other teams in the EFL and those even lower.

Leyton Orient went on to win the match via a penalty shootout, not giving Boreham Wood a chance to reply under the new format implemented by the FA, something that Kwesi doesn’t agree with. “Like, imagine now where we drew 2-2 with Leyton and we're going back to Orient ground. You know what I mean?”

“That's massive and end of the day, like you would deserve that if you're managing to draw with a team in in 90 minutes, you deserve to go and get another replay and let's start again and go again, rather than playing 30 minutes where everyone's knackered and then taking penalties where everyone's knackered”

This new rule doesn’t benefit those competing in the lower divisions. Given the fact that some of the players that do compete that play for those clubs in non-league might not even be professional footballer. The fans travel far and wide to see their club play in such a prestigious competition and the clubs will lose out on money that they could have received if a second match was played, influencing the livelihood of those that play in the matches.

"The minority have driven a huge decision and it's affected an awful lot of clubs across the country today"

Dorking Wanderers owner and manager Marc White on FA Cup replays being scrapped from next season 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/EoUgBNYnCe
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) April 18, 2024

Most of all the lower division players won’t be getting paid nor have the facilities that a Liverpool or a Manchester City player will have access to, creating a stark difference in fitness which could be a reason as to why a team gets eliminated in either extra time or penalties, as Kwesi explains. “Let’s not get it twisted. There’s a big difference between full time in the EFL and full time in the National League.”

“I'd rather just go straight to pennies. Most teams are just happy to just get to penalties and then figure it out in pennies”

“I think it's taking a little bit of shine off for the competition, but end of the day, we ain’t the rule makers so we gotta go with it anyway.”