Greed, as always, drives the FA Cup replay decision

So now it’s official. The Football Association has given up pretending to be the guardian of our national game and admits that the Premier League is actually running the show.

The decision not only to abolish FA Cup replays after the First Round, but to do it from next season, was final confirmation that outside of the interests of the top-flight, the grassroots game can basically go and take a running jump.

The sight of Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta & Co trying to pretend how sorry they were was a nauseating display of cheek and cake eating.

To try and claim that sorrow at getting rid of replays at stages of the competition they don’t enter was staggering.

For goodness’ sake, they don’t even play their first teams in the Cup until the daffodils start coming up.

And the craven FA has let them get away with it.

Not content with undermining our game’s greatest competition for years, until it suited the big boys in the later rounds of course, they cynically put the boot in.

And all in the name of trying to ease the fixture pressure on top clubs and their players.

The pressure hasn’t come from below.

It’s come, by the Premier League’s own admission, from the relentless TV and cash-driven expansion of UEFA and FIFA competitions.

So, have the FA and the Premier League tackled that problem and fought UEFA and FIFA? Oh no, they’ve taken it out on the levels of the game least able to handle it.

Just like cricket’s ECB and rugby’s RFU, two other organisations increasingly regarded with disdain and distrust by their grassroots membership, the FA is now seen as a bunch of blazers devoid of any moral authority.

Which is a shame for the many hard-working and dedicated officials lower down the food-chain.

What do all those people at County FAs across the country think of last week’s announcement?

Anyway, judging by the angry reaction at all levels from the Championship downwards, the pretending is over now and the proverbial gloves are off.

If that’s the way that the PL/FA cabal want to play it, the rest must fight back.

Every other league should tell the FA where to go and start our own competition. How about calling it The Real Cup?

And don’t ban all Premier League clubs from it. Invite them to enter, but tell them that replays are here to stay.

Just as furious fans across Europe nipped that Super League nonsense in the bud, the vast majority of supporters, even of Premier League clubs, have grave reservations about this latest decision, and many disagree with it.

But, of course, they weren’t asked, were they? As usual.