Australia's FA Cup ready for kick-off New Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop. FOOTBALL Federation Australia intends to have an FA Cup-style knockout competition up and running next year with a projected final on Australia Day in 2015, FFA boss David Gallop revealed yesterday. Gallop said FFA officials were still working out the details but the FFA Cup was scheduled to begin in just 12 months, with the lower-ranked teams in action first and the A-League teams joining in September-October next year when their regular season begins. About 700 teams from Australia are expected to compete, ranging from the A-League to state league teams and even amateur teams. However, Gallop warned that there were logistical and financial challenges to be overcome before the competition could go ahead. "We need to make sure it works commercially," he said. But the concept of combining the grassroots and the elite level has obvious appeal. Gallop expects the romance of a competition in which the lowly and the mighty each have an equal chance of taking the trophy to have great appeal for an Australian public culturally predisposed to supporting the underdog. "We all grew up watching the FA Cup and we recognise the connection point it makes for every football club in England," Gallop said. There's a fairytale element of the competition in terms of what's possible and it will add another dimension to the Australian football calendar. Gallop said the creation of the FFA Cup would have very little impact on the established A-League season. "We would envisage the grassroots clubs would start playing this time next year and the grand plan is to hold the FFA Cup final on Australia Day in January," he said. But when we do it, we want to do it right. Gallop said he had pushed for the establishment of the competition since taking the reins at the FFA late last year. "One of the key strategic objectives of the FFA is to connect the massive base of 1.7 million participants to the professional level of the game," he said. You only need to take one look at this idea to see what a boost it would be for that connection. There's no doubt we are on a growth trajectory unrivalled in Australian sport. This kind of competition is not available to other sports, particularly the collision sports. Gallop attributed the dramatic surge in interest in the A-League this season to several factors, including the presence of Italian star Alessandro Del Piero and the other marquee players. However, the key point was that "football is riding a youth demographic." Football represents Australia's demographic like no other code. More than 2500 people are arriving in western Sydney every month, many from footballing nations. And 18- to 34-year-old males have become the missionaries for football in Australia.