FA Cup Questions and other football related conundrums...

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Ok, I know nothing about football, so apologies if this is really obvious.

As you are aware my local team, Maidstone United, are still in the FA cup.

Some friends and I, all of whom know little about football, were discussing this and can't work out would it be best for Maidstone (or similar teams) to get picked against a BIG team (Arsenal, Man City etc) or a lesser team.

We are aware that the teams in each round get an amount of prize money. Also there is TV rights money too.

But taking Maidstone as an example, if they got Arsenal away do Maidstone get half the gate receipts from The Emirates for that match? If so, then it would be advantageous to be drawn against a BIG team although they are less likely to win.

On the other hand if they get drawn at home, can they choose to play at the much larger opponents stadium as they will get more money, or would only a very few Arsenal fans be admitted to the Maidstone stadium as it is clearly massively smaller than a premier league venue?

For very lowly teams is it better to progress as far as you can, or face the Prem teams and get a bumper pay day?


We also ended up with these, non FA Cup related questions too..

1) Let's say Team A have a red home kit and a blue away kit, and Team B has a blue home kit and a red away kit. If they play each other at Team B's ground do they just both wear home kit (even though one team is away) as they both can't wear blue?

2) Finally, for now. Transfers...

Let's suppose a player for a lowly team shines out with their great skill. His team is approached by a much bigger, wealthy club, and is offered a huge amount of money for him. The club is keen to sell as they will make a handsome profit. However, the interested club is based a long way from the players home (or even abroad). The player doesn't want to go, but his club wants the money. Can he be forced to join the new club, or what happens?
 
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Ok, I know nothing about football, so apologies if this is really obvious.

As you are aware my local team, Maidstone United, are still in the FA cup.

Some friends and I, all of whom know little about football, were discussing this and can't work out would it be best for Maidstone (or similar teams) to get picked against a BIG team (Arsenal, Man City etc) or a lesser team.

We are aware that the teams in each round get an amount of prize money. Also there is TV rights money too.

But taking Maidstone as an example, if they got Arsenal away do Maidstone get half the gate receipts from The Emirates for that match? If so, then it would be advantageous to be drawn against a BIG team although they are less likely to win.

On the other hand if they get drawn at home, can they choose to play at the much larger opponents stadium as they will get more money, or would only a very few Arsenal fans be admitted to the Maidstone stadium as it is clearly massively smaller than a premier league venue?

For very lowly teams is it better to progress as far as you can, or face the Prem teams and get a bumper pay day?


We also ended up with these, non FA Cup related questions too..

1) Let's say Team A have a red home kit and a blue away kit, and Team B has a blue home kit and a red away kit. If they play each other at Team B's ground do they just both wear home kit (even though one team is away) as they both can't wear blue?

2) Finally, for now. Transfers...

Let's suppose a player for a lowly team shines out with their great skill. His team is approached by a much bigger, wealthy club, and is offered a huge amount of money for him. The club is keen to sell as they will make a handsome profit. However, the interested club is based a long way from the players home (or even abroad). The player doesn't want to go, but his club wants the money. Can he be forced to join the new club, or what happens?
In the FA Cup (unlike League games) gate receipts are split so yes, it would be hugely advantageous for Maidstone to get a big away tie as opposed to a home tie and progress. Maidstone's last accounts showed they turned over £1.7m for the 21/22 season - an away tie to Arsenal, Liverpool, Utd or Spurs would earn them close to that sum just from their split in the gate receipts. You'd probably need to reach the semi finals just to earn as much through prize money.

I'm fairly sure they wouldn't be allowed to move a one off game to a different stadium. I know some 20+ years ago Arsenal were allowed to play their CL games at Wembley but they had to elect that stadium at the start of the competition and commit to playing all their games there.

And for your other questions. Although at higher levels this does get fudged a bit with clubs having upto 3 different kits and contractual commitments to wear each kit a certain number of times (they'll never clash with the colour of the home team though), there's nothing stopping the away side from wearing their home kit in an away game. So in your example team B would wear their blue home kit.

And finally, no a player can't be forced to move however if a player from a lower league side is being sold to a much bigger club then he's likely to be offered a big pay rise and would happily leave.
 
It's about maximising income for the lower league teams so in Maidstone's case they would definitely be better drawing a top Premier League team away due to the split in gate receipts as BaZ said, I feel fairly confident should Maidstone have been drawn at home against one of those they may say their ground isn't safe for that amount of fans and applied to switch to the Prem teams ground, also if it's a televised game there's an extra couple of hundred grand there as well (I think the press stated Chesterfield got nearly the years costs covered for being televised against Chelsea last year)
 
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