Manchester City face Exeter City in the FA Cup third round this weekend with the League One club looking to cause a major upset
Exeter City will be looking to cause a huge FA Cup upset against Man City this weekend(Image: (Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images))
Exeter City Supporters’ Trust chairman Pete Ferlie has explained how beating Manchester City in the FA Cup would give the club a huge financial boost. The Grecians have struggled with their finances as of late, but a stunning cup run would greatly improve their outlook.
As a fan-owned club, Exeter rely on donations through the Supporters’ Trust alongside selling star assets when their stock is at its highest. A highly successful academy has been key to that, but the Devon club have struggled more recently to develop and obtain significant funds from parting ways with homegrown talent.
Therefore, domestic success has become extremely crucial, with a run to the FA Cup third round helping matters. Exeter are now set to face Pep Guardiola’s treble-winning side at the Etihad Stadium, with Ferlie delighted at the chance the club will have to show their strengths on the biggest of stages.
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He told Mirror Football: “Well, obviously it was a great draw, one of the best teams in the country and Europe, so really exciting to go to that type of venue and play that type of team. It just shows you what a fan-owned club can do. It’s all the romance of the FA Cup as well – minnow against giant.
“It would be enormous [to beat Man City], especially after the type of summer we’ve had and to get into the fourth round by beating a Premier League side, it would be magic. It would be all our wishes coming true for the club, the players and the fans.
“They support this, they come in week in and week out, give us their hard-earned money and it would be really nice for us here’s your reward for that support. And then to get another big team back at St James Park would be absolutely fantastic and we’ve got everything crossed that that is going to happen.
“And you just never know on the day, it’s a cup match so you never what might happen so there’s a lot of excitement around that and we are looking forward to show the football world what Exeter is going to sound like come 3pm on that matchday.”
Despite it being a League One club against a huge Premier League giant, it has not been selected for TV coverage and yet Tottenham vs Aston Villa along with Manchester United vs Brighton will be available to watch live.
Though 45 per cent of the gate receipts will be coming their way regardless, The Trust have written to Man City asking for a portion of their share of the matchday gate receipts to be transferred.
Exeter play their football at St James Park(Image: (Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images))
Having that request granted would be huge and being chosen for TV would have been another great boost to their finances. Despite that snub, Ferlie has remained positive and insisted they will just crack on with that being the ethos of the club.
He said: “Yes it is a shame, obviously we want to be on TV to showcase what we’re about, but we’re not so we’ll just get on with it and make the best of it we can, such as talking to other media outlets.
“We will take these chances to tell you all about the benefits and all the good stuff of being a fan-owned club.”
Prior to their huge cup draw, Exeter were in the headlines after a fire broke out at their St James Park stadium which caused damage to an important building used on matchdays and ultimately led to their League One clash against Burton Albion that weekend being postponed.
But again, Ferlie’s response showed exactly why Exeter have come thus far and become such a sustainable EFL club.
He said: “We took it in our stride, another bump in the road of Exeter City in the almost 125 years we’ve been going, it is not uncommon for us to have these financial hiccups. We’re battling through it, we’re doing some good work to get ourselves back in the right direction.
“Obviously an FA Cup run helps us enormously, it doesn’t solve all the problems but getting the fourth round would help even more.”