Should the FA abolish using Wembley as a venue for FA cup semi finals?

Bring back the neutral venues i say.

Daft question really because they won't due to the financial side of things but given the size of stadia up and down the land then why not?

Getting to Wembley for a final should be a special occassion which makes playing there for a semi a bit of a joke.

At the end of the day i blame the 2 massive Sheffield clubs for this.

 

I agree to a certain extent but it gives more people a chance to see it - would have hated to have missed out in 08 despite the result

 

Yes, unless we get there again.

 

Yes. Stupid money making scheme the the useless FA.

 

yes, definately for me - loses some of the magic of getting to the final - I know the idea behind it is supposedly that its nice to play at Wembley and so why not spread it to the semis and therefore more clubs/fans - but isnt that the idea of competition - that you have to get to the end to get the rewards?, for me its more about an FA maximising the revenue - its all they are interested in.

 

isnt the end reward winning it ? doesnt matter where you play it for me, if you lose it sucks wether its wembley or frickley

 

Play the semis at the Millennium stadium or the one built for the Olympics that they can't flog.

 

winning the trophy is the ultimate end reward yes, but the final being played at Wembley and the occasion of the day is all part of the 'cup final' atmosphere for me and the reward for getting there - people have always and still do speak of 'getting to wembley' and the excitement of that - its just my opinion that to keep it special it should be reserved for the final.

The competion seems to be losing its appeal anyway and the succesful club sides now really look at the Premier League title and the Champions League as the most important.

I wonder how long before we have a 'play off' at the end of the Premier league season to decide the champions - best of 3 games or mini league between 3 or 4 teams? that should generate some more income and a few more games to fill Wembley?

 

absolutely!

 

Yes it should be reserved for finals. Extending the point our national stadium should have been rebuilt in or around Birmingham.

 

While I don't necessarily disagree, the attraction of a special day out to see your team play a big match on the sh**ty outskirts of Birmingham is hardly a strong argument.

 

It's no joke playing at Wembley.

The more that stadium is used the better. Finance is "God". Money, money, money is all that matters.

The FA needs all the money it can get to pay Brooking and his croneys the massive salaries they get for doing not very much.

 

Yes. I've lost count of the amount of times i've been told that Davey did an amazing thing getting us to wembley. Well so what? We weren't in a final so I don't care. Being at Wembley meant absolutely nothing to me because it wasn't a cup final. It wasn't a proper final, trophy on the line day out at Wembley, it was just a random venue for a normal cup game.

In a way I am glad we didn't win against Cardiff because going back down to Wembley for the final would have had very little meaning for me. I feel for the Cardiff fans who's big Wembley final once in a lifetime experience was totally robbed from them by the money hungry FA

 

True however i don't think the surroundings or local area are any arguement and it seems the FA must agree or they wouldn't have chosen the salubrious LB Brent as the favoured location.

 

You po-faced miserable old sod! I knew plenty of Reds fans who died having never seen us get to Wembley and who would have loved to have seen us play there, whatever the game.

I take it that if they had played the game at one of the old FA Cup semi-final grounds, like the City Ground, Nottingham, and we'd have been given 12,000 tickets, that you wouldn't have been one of the people bleating that they couldn't get a ticket then?

Whilst the FA is no doubt having to try to claw back the silly money that the stadium building costs reached (and I know a few people who work at the FA who were less than pleased having to leave their s****y Soho Square offices for the stadium), the first FA Cup semi-finals to be played there were due to logistics (i.e. why take Spurs and Arsenal both to the midlands) and to allow enough people to see the game. Wednesday and United benefited from Spurs-Arsenal being the other game. Now it's a combination of ensuring there are enough tickets (10%) and clawing the money back 90%), but they haven't only played semi-finals at Wembley since the new stadium was built.

But to say that watching us play at Wembley meant nothing is either you trying too hard to be cool or forgetting what you wanted to support a football team for in the first place.

And I can't believe there is even a question about whether Davey (and the team) did well in getting us to Wembley. People are so blind by their dislike of the man that they can't see the wood for the trees. Of course we did well. Most years winning at Southend would have been out of the question, but that season just look at who we beat (and how we beat them), to get there. Are people seriously that bitter that they can't say we did well, or have to give caveats to it.

Jeysus, we came from behind to win at Anfield with a last minute goal, we outplayed Chelsea and beat them in front of a packed Oakwell and we got to play at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final, which was the farthest we've been in the competition since 1912 and some people still weren't happy?!?

 

i think the FA should have built 3 new stadiums in Birmingham Sheffield And Liverpool as part of the world cup bid then rented them out to the clubs in them citys, then they could have held semis and England games there, and we would have had a better bid

 

proper bloody hell..and they say I am the miserable git on here ..I stand aside

you miserable git

 

well I would say yes they should...but they will not

its established on their calendar now.... but with fantastic new Stadia like the emirates etihad etc I see no reason why they cannot be used, and also for England games too. But as I say it will not happen.

 

We made more money out of the Chelsea game with 20 odd thousand than we did for the semi at Wembley. We (us and Cardiff) had to rent the stadium from the FA for the game, although we had no choice in having to play there.

Biggest white elephant going for a while, but has just been surpassed by the Olympic Stadium.