Jeff Stelling Says FA Cup Third Round Draw Should Be Seeded To Benefit Lower League Clubs

Jeff Stelling has pitched a new format for the FA Cup draw, which would financially benefit the lower league clubs.

The third-round draw for the FA Cup took place on Sunday afternoon. Ties include Arsenal vs Liverpool and Sunderland vs Newcastle and will take place on the weekend of the 6th and 7th of January.

However, football voice Jeff Stelling expressed his frustration with the draw, advocating for a seeding system to benefit lower-league teams financially.

Debuting on his new morning show with talkSPORT, Stelling said, “I’m not interested in Arsenal against Liverpool in the FA Cup, I see it in the Premier League, not interested at all.”

He continued, “What worries me is some of the smaller teams who get through to this stage. You look at Eastleigh and Maidstone, they played five games to get to this stage, and they are looking for a bumper payday.

“And what happens? They get a rotten draw. No chance of TV coverage, by the way, no chance of a big payday.

“What you really want is for the non-league sides to have their moment in the sun!” 🙏

“I’m not interested in #AFC v #LFC in the cup. Maidstone have played 5 games to get here!”@JeffStelling explains why the #FACup 3rd round draw should be seeded, and how. 👀 pic.twitter.com/L8N9pYJx4R

— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) December 4, 2023

Jeff Stelling’s New FA Cup Format Pitch

Pitching his idea for a new format, Stelling said, “What they need to do is seed the third round draw of the FA Cup. For goodness sake, it is not too difficult.

“We have got 20 teams who qualify. They’ve come through round one and round two and all the qualifying rounds before that.

“You pick them out of the bag, home or away, and then you put the rest of the teams from the Premier League and Championship, all 44 of them, and you pick out 20 of those teams, and they will play the lower league sides.

“So every lower league team gets a bumper payday in the third round; they might get TV as well. And there’s 24 teams left over from the Premier League and Championship.

“You can still get Arsenal against Liverpool if that’s what you really want. But what you really want is for lower league and non-league sides to have their moment in the sun, to have their big pay day. Because at the end of the day, the big clubs are only there because of the grassroots clubs.”