The FA Cup has scrapped replays from the first round proper from the 2024-25 season in a six-year agreement to restructure the competition.

The 2025 FA Cup final will be played on the Saturday of the weekend of the Premier League’s matchday 37 — the penultimate round of fixtures — with league fixtures not played on the Friday night or Saturday to give exclusivity to the event, with the Football Association confirming the changes on Thursday.

Additionally, there will be no further midweek rounds in the competition.

This season’s FA Cup final will take place on May 25 at Wembley Stadium, six days after the final round of matches in the Premier League season.

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The semi-final stage will take place over the weekend of April 20-21, with current holders Manchester City facing Chelsea in Saturday’s match before Manchester United play Championship side Coventry City the following day — with both matches to be staged at Wembley.

The FA Cup finals in 2021 and 2022 were both staged one week before the end of the Premier League season, but all other finals since 2013 have been staged following its conclusion.

The 2023 FA Cup final was staged after the Premier League season concluded (Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)

The FA Cup will also scrap replays from the first-round stage — the round at which League One and League Two teams enter the competition — onwards next season.

The move is designed to ease fixture congestion, with replays currently in place for the first-round to the fourth-round stage.

Replays from the fifth-round stage onwards were removed by the FA in 2018.

However, the mid-season break in the Premier League has been removed from the calendar to “allow a mid-August start date for the Premier League.”

FA chief executive Mark Bullingham has said: “The new schedule ensures the magic of the Cup is protected and enhanced, while working for the whole of the English game.

The longer summer period also allows a much-needed player break before the start of the next season.”

Premier League chief executive, Richard Masters said: “The FA and the Premier League have worked in partnership to deliver more exclusive weekends without compromising the excitement of knockout football and this has been achieved at the same time as allowing us to ease fixture congestion generally.”

Aston Villa played Chelsea in an FA Cup fourth round replay this season (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

The Premier League has separately announced an increase in funding to the football pyramid, adding they were providing an additional £33million for grassroots football on top of the £100m it currently gives to good causes each season.

Replays remained popular among lower division clubs; third and fourth-round replays earned competing clubs £40,000 and £55,000 respectively, while gate receipts were shared equally between competing clubs — an arrangement that offered financial incentives to clubs with smaller budgets.

The competition changes will also see FA Cup matches, barring replays in earlier rounds, exclusively played at weekends.

The current format has seen the fifth round of the competition played in midweek since the 2020-21 campaign, but this will now revert back to a weekend slot.

(Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)


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