Joey Barton believes the FA Cup can be preserved if the winners were awarded Champions League football instead of the fourth-placed finisher in the Premier League.
Although Barton believes the magic of the competition is alive and well for clubs beneath the top flight, the Bristol Rovers manager says big clubs treat it with 'disdain' and it means the grand old competition is not what it once was.
Barton says the FA Cup has been on the slide since 2000 when Manchester United, the then reigning treble holders, chose to play in the Club World Cup in Brazil, forfeiting their place in the cup, and he thinks drastic measures are required to entice big clubs to take it more seriously – with the final once the highlight of the football calendar – but he admits he has no confidence the authorities would make such a move.
"It’s an iconic trophy and they’ve done their best to ruin it over the years, they’ve had a right good go at it," he said. "We’ve got four league places and I think they should take the fourth league position and make the FA Cup winner play in the Champions League. I don’t see how they can create that level of prestige it once had.
"It was the only competition to win, it was more prestigious than the league when you speak to people from the 1950s and 1960s. It was the competition. They’ve lost that connection now. If you offered someone fourth in the league or winning the FA Cup, they would say fourth in the league because it gets you the money and the Champions League prestige.
"But the only way I feel the competition can be salvaged is the winner getting into the Champions League. I think that would make the competition as good as it once was, but there is absolutely no chance they’ll do it because there is too much money involved.
"It’s an incredible competition for lower-league clubs when the big clubs treat it with the disdain that they do. I think Man United ruined it when they played in the Club World Cup and not in the FA Cup.
"I think the FA have to take a lot of responsibility in that because there should have been some flexibility to allow them to play in it, or some sanction for doing what they did. From that point on, it’s been viewed differently by the generations that have come after that."
Barton grew up in the generation when big FA Cup ties dominated terrestrial TV and he has fond memories of the competition from his childhood, although his beloved Everton were not always on the winning side.
"I can remember the 1989 cup final," he said. "There were street parties in our road, with Liverpudlians on one side of the street and Evertonians on the other and the whole road was shut down. As an Evertonian, that wasn’t a phenomenal memory because I think we took the lead in the game and ended up losing 2-1.
"As a 13 or 14-year-old, I was at Everton at the time, I remember going to the 1995 cup final when Graham Stuart hit the bar and Paul Rideout put in the rebound and we beat a really good Man United side that day.
"I remember everything about it, the BBC in the morning with the build-up to the game. That, for me, was the dream as the kid, to win an FA Cup for the team you supported, or a World Cup for England. Those were the two ambitions; the European cups, as you get a bit older you realise the prestige attached to them, but for everyone growing up wanted to score in the cup final.
"The number of goals in cup finals or semi-finals I scored in our back garden was ridiculous. You were always visualising and channelling those cup-final moments."
Barton's players are in FA Cup action on Sunday, hosting National League side Boreham Wood at the Mem with a place in the third round at stake.
One of his players, Josh Coburn, knows just how special the competition can be when the Premier League clubs enter, scoring an extra-time winner for Middlesbrough against a full-strength Tottenham Hotspur side at the Riverside Stadium in March.
The Rovers manager has called on his players to do a "professional" job on Sunday to give themselves the chance of pulling a big tie in Monday's draw.
"Before the game against Rochdale (in the first round), I said ‘It’s your competition'," Barton said.
"Some managers at this level probably drive it on a little bit more because it’s their chance to get in the limelight as well, to raise their profile, and that’s the last thing I need, obviously.
"I said to the lads the league campaign is our bread and butter, the Papa John’s we’ve flicked in because we’re in the knockout stage and we’ve changed our mindset towards it, whereas the FA Cup is solely for our players and it’s a chance for them to test themselves against high-level opposition if you’re fortunate enough or good enough to get through to that stage.
"But there is no pressure from me. ‘If you want to have a good cup run, crack on and get after it’. If we don’t perform, I’ll be gutted, clearly, but I won’t be chewing them out like the league because for me this season, the league is our absolute priority.
"We’ve got a good opportunity to get in the third round and we’ll all be frustrated should we not maximise it."
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