ANNOUNCEMENT: CUP TIED

During this week off, I thought it worthwhile to announce another initiative in the FMICL world... the introduction of ...

The FMICL Cup

This will be run 'FA Cup' style. All teams will play, all games will be a one time, one game knockout format. It will be scheduled during the season, with 20 matches in total to be contested.
It will also follow the FA Cup format of players being drawn to play opponents for the round of 16, quarter finals and semi finals.


Structure:
We do have 20 players so there will need to be a preliminary round to reduce the 20 teams into the next phase, the round of 16.
Therefore, the current proposal is to:
   - Seed the top 12 players on the League Table direct into the round of 16 matches, and
   - Place the bottom 8 players into a preliminary round for the last 4 spots

The cutoff for seeding will be after match week 9 of the League (weekend of 24 October).
This means all players have the next 6-7 weeks to get into gear to avoid a Cup preliminary round matchup.

After the Preliminary rounds, the round of 16 follows, then winners will be drawn to play each other in the quarter finals. The quarter final winners will also be drawn for competition in semi finals, and from these games we will have a Cup Final and a 3rd place play-off.


Season:
The Cup season will be run in parallel with the current regular season, with Cup games scheduled on the same weekends.
Cup games will be played by players selecting an additional group of EPL (etc) games to the regular season selections. This means additional tips for selected players each week of the Cup competition.

Further, as it is a strict knockout format, the 'Finals System' rules (in the 'RULES' page) will apply, with additional games to be tipped to use as 'penalties' tie breakers. This is explained in the Rules under "Finals System' point 5).

As a special rule for the Cup, the rules 5d) and 5e) about breaking a post-penalty deadlock wont be played. Instead the Cup match WILL BE REPLAYED at a later date, but only if penalties don't split competitors first. This is noted in the amended Rules page.


Competition:
Proposal now is for players to select an additional 5 games for Cup matches (as well as selecting an additional 5 for 'penalties'). Remember these are additional to the regular 7 to be tipped.
As normal, these will be selected and posted to the blog for players to select. And again, the tips should be DM's back for lodgement.


Happy to take advice, comment, feedback etc to tune this before kick-off.
Think, discuss and let me know.

FMICL CUP
Preliminary Rounds				Round Of 16
WK 10				WK 15
WK 11				WK 16
WK 12				WK 17
WK 13				WK 20
				WK 21
				WK 23
				WK 24
				WK 25