The next two weeks have the potential to be a very strange time if you are a Wigan Athletic supporter. On one hand the Latics have an outside chance of getting their hands on a first ever FA Cup, while next Sunday their relegation from the Premier League could be confirmed with the club three points away from safety with two games to go.
It is all set up for a pyrrhic victory of sorts.
But one would suspect that given a choice between a day out for the fans at Wembley and the tantalising prospect of a 90 minute fight for a trophy, Wigan would reluctantly turn that down for another year in the Premier League.
It is a sad truth even reflected in the fact that the FA Cup final against Manchester City has been set for a 5.15pm kick-off, instead of the traditional afternoon showpiece it regally occupied.
In bygone years, the FA Cup would have been the only major fixture on that day's football calendar. But increasingly the Premier League has been treading on its toes in recent years and today there is a league game earlier in the day between Aston Villa and Chelsea at 12.45pm with both sides fighting against relegation in the former’s case and for the Top 4 in the latter’s case.
Trinket?
That game defines the problem for the FA Cup. Chelsea will hope to nuzzle their nostrils in the Champions League trough for next season, while Villa will hope to make perfectly sure that they keep the lucrative TV deal in their piggy bank.
In a world where money talks, domestic trophies are just empty trinkets that neither provide lucrative rewards for owners and club boards, nor do they equate to a place in the Top Four.
That is the problem for Wigan. Winning the FA Cup and securing survival in the top tier is possible and the dream scenario. Losing the FA Cup but avoiding relegation would be a disappointment but the continuation of the top flight fairytale would help them sleep relatively snugly.
However winning the FA Cup and falling out of the Premier League’s trap door would be a disaster, even with a first major piece of silverware in the club’s 81 year history.
Financially Wigan are not in dire straits but even so their best players would have to move on as the wolves blow the door down to take some little piggies to the market.
Even for Man City boss Roberto Mancini, an FA Cup win would only provide the merest consolation. The meek title loss to Manchester United and the continued failure to progress beyond the Champions League group stages is likely to figure more prominently in the minds of the power brokers at the Etihad.
And is this inequity between the FA Cup and the Premier League going to end any time soon? When Michel Platini first became President of UEFA, he seemed to indicate that he supported the notion of awarding a Champions League place to cup winners.
However as doors are blown down with debt spiralling within the sport, that seems to have been buried under considerable amounts of rubble and is unlikely to occur unless UEFA goes ahead with its tentative – but unworkable - proposal to expand the Champions League to 64 teams.
