Format
The competition is a knockout tournament with pairings for each round drawn at random. There are no seeds and the draw for each round is not made until after the scheduled dates for the previous round. The draw also determines which teams will play at home.
Each tie is played as a single leg. If a match is drawn, there is a replay, usually at the ground of the team who were away for the first game. Drawn replays are now settled with extra time and penalty shootouts, though until the 1990s further replays would be played until one team was victorious. Some ties took as many as six matches to settle; in their 1975 campaign, Fulham played a total of 12 games over six rounds, which remains the most games played by a team to reach a final. Replays were traditionally played three or four days after the original game, but from 1991–92 they were staged at least 10 days later on police advice. This led to penalty shoot-outs being introduced. Replays are no longer held for the semi-finals or final.
There are a total of 14 rounds in the competition — six qualifying rounds, followed by six "proper", plus the semi-finals and the final. The qualifying rounds are regionalised to reduce the travel costs for smaller non-league sides. The First and Second Rounds were also previously split into Northern and Southern sections, but this practice was ended after the 1997–98 competition.
The competition begins in August with the lowest-ranked clubs; they contest the Extra Preliminary Round, followed by the Preliminary Round and First Qualifying Round. Clubs in the Conference North and Conference South join in the Second Qualifying Round, and Conference National clubs join in the Fourth Qualifying Round.
The 32 winners from that round progress to the First Round (often called the First Round Proper) – they are joined by the 48 clubs from League One and League Two. Finally, teams from the Premier League and Football League Championship enter at the Third Round Proper, at which point there are 64 teams remaining in the competition. The Sixth Round Proper is the quarter-final stage, at which point eight teams remain.
The FA Cup has a set pattern for when each round is played. Normally the First Round is played in mid-November, with the Second Round on one of the first two Saturdays in December. The third round is played on the first weekend in January, with the Fourth Round later in the month and Fifth Round in mid-February. The Sixth Round (or quarter-finals) traditionally occurs in early or mid March, with the semi-finals a month later.
The final is normally held the Saturday after the Premier League season finishes in May. The only seasons in recent times when this pattern was not followed were 1999–2000, when most rounds were played a few weeks earlier than normal as an experiment, and 2010–2011 when the FA Cup Final was played before the Premier League season had finished, in order to allow the stadium to be ready for the UEFA Champions League final.
The FA Cup winners qualify for the following season's UEFA Europa League (formerly named the UEFA Cup; until 1998 they entered the Cup Winners' Cup instead). This European place applies even if the team is relegated or is not in the English top flight. However, if the FA Cup winning team has also qualified for the following season's Champions League, then the losing FA Cup finalist is given the Europa League place instead. FA Cup winners enter the Europa League at the Group Stage. Losing finalists, if they enter the Europa League, must begin earlier, at the play-off or Q3 stage.
The FA Cup winners also qualify for the single-match FA Community Shield against the Premier League Champions.
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