OFFICIAL: FA Cup replays to be scrapped, final on penultimate weekend of season

The FA Cup has scrapped replays from the first round proper from the 2024-25 season in a six-year agreement to restructure the competition.

The 2025 FA Cup final will be played on the Saturday of the weekend of the Premier League's matchday 37 — the penultimate round of fixtures — with league fixtures not played on the Friday night or Saturday to give exclusivity to the event, with the Football Association confirming the changes on Thursday. Additionally, there will be no further midweek rounds in the competition.

This season's FA Cup final will take place on May 25 at Wembley Stadium, six days after the final round of matches in the Premier League season.

The semi-final stage will take place over the weekend of April 20-21, with current holders Manchester City facing Chelsea in Saturday's match before Manchester United play Championship side Coventry City the following day — with both matches to be staged at Wembley.

The FA Cup finals in 2021 and 2022 were both staged one week before the end of the Premier League season, but all other finals since 2013 have been staged following its conclusion.

The 2023 FA Cup final was staged after the Premier League season concluded (Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)

The FA Cup will also scrap replays from the first-round stage — the round at which League One and League Two teams enter the competition — onwards next season.

The move is designed to ease fixture congestion, with replays currently in place for the first-round to the fourth-round stage. Replays from the fifth-round stage onwards were removed by the FA in 2018.

However, the mid-season break in the Premier League has been removed from the calendar to “allow a mid-August start date for the Premier League.”

FA chief executive Mark