FFA to commence in 2014!

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1147262/FFA-Cup-to-commence-in-2014

An Australia Day grand final in 2015 is set to be the showpiece of the inaugural Football Federation Australia Cup, which will begin this time next year, FFA chief executive David Gallop announced.

The much-anticipated knockout tournament, based on England's FA Cup, will feature around 700 teams across Australia with the A-League sides to join in September and October at the same time as their season starts.

Gallop said the FFA Cup is a priority for his administration.

"We will move to an FFA Cup and I would expect it to start in 2014," Gallop said.

"It will start around this time of the year and the A-League clubs will come in around September and October to coincide with the start of the A-League season.

"The grand plan is to hold an Australia Day grand final of the FFA Cup."

However, that would clash with the 2015 AFC Asian Cup semi-final scheduled for Sydney that year.

Gallop said he had fast-tracked planning on the tournament when he took over as FFA CEO in November.

"There are people at the FFA working on it now," he said.

"The first day on the job when someone told me about it I said what are we doing about it?

"There will be six or seven hundred teams involved and we all know about the FA Cup, we all get up for it, the chance for those lesser teams to come through.

"The FFA Cup will happen. There is a lot of work being done on it and there are some challenges involved but when we do it we want to do it right."

Gallop also said the A-League's controversial new finals format was proving to be a success.

The decision to cram a three-week finals series, consisting of only sudden-death games, into the end of the A-League season after 27 rounds was greeted by derision in some football circles but former rugby league chief Gallop said the format was providing an exciting finale to the competition's eighth season at a time when it is competing with the NRL and AFL for the attention of fans, sponsors and media.

"Talking to people in and around the game about the change this year having sudden-death games where everything is on the line has been important because we are in a very competitive environment," Gallop said.

"It was a smart move away from a start in September when the AFL and NRL are at the pointy end.

"And at the end of the season, we unashamedly realise we are in a very competitive period and we need to adjust to that."

The format has given the game's governing body a dream set of semi-finals, with Western Sydney Wanderers hosting defending champion Brisbane Roar on Friday and Central Coast Mariners playing Melbourne Victory on Sunday in Gosford.

"It's an exciting conclusion to the season, there are no dead rubbers and it is a quick finish to the season and that is why we created it," Gallop said.

Gallop also defended the need for a grand final in the Australian market.

"In Australia, it is about the grand final and, while we will certainly recognise the premiers, sport is all about seizing the moment and that is what the grand final is about," he said.

:praise: Such great news and hopefully we slowly organise a relegation/promotion. However the dating is wrong, its going to clash with the Asian Cup which we are holding in 2015!

Great! Need something like this to bring the A-League forward