FA Cup is a conduit, not a competition Being magical is a little like not being a racist: the more you have to keep saying it, the less it is probably true. The problem, you see, is not that nobody cares about the FA Cup, but that nobody cares about it enough. Or rather, we care about other things more. Ourselves, mostly, but also the familiar, comforting, weekly plod of the league season, which has asserted its 12-month hegemony to the extent that "Premier League goals" or "league starts" are the only recognised footballing currency these days, as if the other stuff is simply annoying background static. Even the broadcasts emanated a certain ennui if you looked hard enough. For one thing, Roy Keane was smiling, which is always a sign of boredom. For another, he was clearly trolling the audience in an attempt to jolt himself awake. "I would class it as a typical Tottenham performance," he said after their 2-0 defeat. They will obviously let you down most times. Beside him sat Ian Wright, a sort of punditry cuckoo clock: you can ignore him most of the time, but every so often he will explode into your life in the most intrusive way imaginable, emitting startling, unpleasant noises and making babies cry. Beside him sat newcomer Ledley King, who looked thoroughly petrified throughout, rocking uneasily back and forth in his chair like a man with an ill-fitting catheter. "It's the biggest game of the season," Wright said. You lose against Spurs, it doesn't make no difference if it's the Cup or not. And herein lies the FA Cup's problem: it is no longer a competition, but a conduit. Those regular calls to award the winner a Champions League place or more prize money miss the point entirely, falling into what I call the Goal Music Fallacy. Playing loud music after a goal, as happened five times at the City Ground yesterday, implies that a goal is insufficiently rewarding in its own right, that it is merely a way of unlocking the real prize, which is The Fratellis played at masonry-splitting volume. Similarly, if the FA Cup were worth winning in its own right, the consequences of winning it would be irrelevant. Instead, it has become not an end, but a means: a means of gathering momentum, swelling the coffers, or as Crystal Palace's Danny Gabbidon put it at the weekend: "kicking on for the second half of the season." The FA Cup: the world's oldest way of kicking on for the second half of the season. Form an orderly queue, sponsors. The only solution, as I see it, is to do away with the whole thing. Yes, it has history. Yes, it delights millions and provides some of the game's richest memories. But it is now no more than a distraction, which is why the only humane course of action is to abolish the Premier League with immediate effect. The consequences will be seismic and far-reaching. The recriminations will be bitter. But it is only real way of clearing the fixture list and allowing the FA Cup to regain its rightful place at the pinnacle of English football. Which, I am sure you will agree, is what we all want.