Ex-Everton employee blasts ‘ridiculous’ FA decision for January devoid of common sense
Goodison News is delighted to welcome aboard our brilliant new columnist Bryan King, the former goalkeeper who spent over eight years as a scout at Everton and 28 years in total in first-team scouting roles. Bryan also spent six years on Tottenham’s recruitment team and 11 years scouting at Aston Villa across two different spells…
Bryan King has blasted the decision to show the FA Cup clash between Everton and Crystal Palace next month on TV.
The Toffees will travel to Selhurst Park on 4 January 2024 to take on the Eagles in the third round of the competition.
As per the official FA website (7 December), the match is one of six to have been selected for live broadcast by ITV and the BBC.
Speaking to Goodison News, King said: “Ridiculous. We’ve seen them all season. The third round of the FA Cup is a great time for the smaller clubs to play the bigger ones. The money from TV games for smaller clubs would be immense.
“Everton versus Crystal Palace and a couple of other Premier League games are on TV. Why not go out and look at the interesting ties, that’s what the FA Cup is all about.
“Some of these clubs have played seven rounds to get here. They have qualifying rounds, and now they are in round three. Who runs the football? A little bit of common sense here could help an awful lot of small clubs.”
Everton supporters will be delighted at another chance to watch their team in action on TV, with the same to be said of Palace fans.
Matches involving fellow Premier League clubs Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United among others have also been selected.
And all of that means the lower league clubs really are set to miss out on a huge boost, which is a shame considering how hard they have worked to reach this stage.
In other Everton news, a journalist has mooted the upcoming clash with Tottenham as the “perfect time” for Sean Dyche to start one Toffees man.