Welsh Cup seeding system is working against lower-tier, grassroots football clubs

The FAW’s Welsh Cup seeding system has worked out perfectly for them in the north with not a single team below tier 2 reaching the last 32.

Ten Cymru North sides and six Welsh Premier clubs representing the northern region made it into round three over the weekend.

The FAW claim seeding clubs from the top two rungs of the pyramid creates more David v Goliath ties in round two.

Maybe it does, but what it also does is go a long way towards ensuring no ‘minnows’ get beyond the final 64.

In turn, this means the bigger prize money always ends up in the higher ranked clubs’ coffers.

Yes, the competition now rewards clubs financially for every tie they win at all stages, but as the payouts get higher, the underdogs disappear.

At least this season all 28 seeded clubs – 12 Cymru Premier, eight Cymru North and eight Cymru South – were all drawn away in round two, but the pairings still heavily favoured the top two tiers.

And the cost of hosting a top two tier side (referees fees etc) presumably all falls on the lower-placed host club? And what if the visiting team don’t have many fans? That would mean the hosts wouldn’t benefit that much from gate receipts either.

In fairness, there were a couple of huge upsets in the southern section at the weekend, with Cardiff Met and Haverfordwest humbled, but this website’s concern is North Wales football.

In the north, Chirk AAA were a penalty shoot-out away from pulling off the biggest surprise of all – a win over holders and Cymru Premier champions The New Saints. Sadly, it didn’t happen.

But the fact remains that at a still relatively early stage of the competition, tier 3, 4 and 5 interest for the north is over.

One of North Wales football’s greatest ever stories was Holywell Town becoming the only club below tier 2 in history to reach the semi-finals of the Welsh Cup in 2013/14.

Under the FAW’s current policy, the chances of that ever happening again seem minimal – and that is not good for grassroots football, which our chiefs in Cardiff claim to care so much about.

The draw for round three of the 2022-23 Welsh Cup is due to take place tonight (Monday) at 8 pm via the FAW’s live channels.