The winner of this year’s Men’s FA Cup will receive £2.1 million in prize money. On the surface this is probably a good amount. That is until you compare it to the prize money offered for finishing one place up in the Premier League.
According to the Premier League website, each position in 2024–25 was worth £2.7m, so finishing 17th, one place above the drop, earned £10.8m – more than five times the amount required to win the FA Cup.
Not only this, the financial impact of demotion is also huge. Broadcast amounts, as well as matchday and commercial revenues are all affected.
And while the actual amount will vary on a club-by-club basis, football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes relegation from the top flight in 2025-26 will cost clubs an average of £100 million.
“The club that finished bottom of the Premier League two years ago, the last set of dates we have, have got £111 million,” Maguire told the Daily Mail in January.
“I think by the end of this season, we’ll be expecting somewhere in the region of £120m from television companies alone.
“This will drop to around £45m in the Championship, which is already around £75m (lost).”
Once you add up the loss of matchday and commercial revenue, it means clubs are losing more than £100 million.
So, when it comes to rotating players, is it really any surprise that managers are increasingly preferring to use domestic cup competitions as rotation playgrounds?
While there’s a lot to be gained for fans, and you could argue that for the players, the benefits aren’t that attractive to many of those charged with steering the ship.
