Sir Alex Ferguson has accused the Football Association of putting profits before prestige by moving the FA Cup semi-finals to Wembley. Manchester United play Portsmouth today for a place at the national stadium, but Ferguson is unhappy with the arrangement, which he claims was drawn up to meet Wembley’s £757 million construction costs.

The FA has a 30-year staging agreement that will mean all FA Cup semi-finals being played at Wembley rather than neutral grounds such as Old Trafford or Villa Park and the United manager believes that the decision detracts from the competition’s glitter.

“I think the incentive for every footballer is that one day they can get to a final at Wembley,” Ferguson said. “With playing the semi-final there, it just takes a wee bit of the real lustre from that. But, given the financial commitment to a new Wembley, they couldn’t do anything else.

“The [ticket] prices are expensive, of course. London prices are very expensive anyway, well above the rest of the country. To me, playing at neutral grounds is obvious. It just depends on where the semi-finals are based.

“If we got to the semi-final and we were drawn against, say, Middlesbrough, then both sets of supporters would have to travel down to Wembley, when we could have the semi-final at [Manchester] City, Liverpool, Everton or Leeds.”

FA officials make no secret of the commercial dimension to the decision. However, they point out that the majority of additional revenue is shared between the participating clubs and that the FA’s own revenue from the Cup is distributed among all the clubs who enter.

An FA spokesman said: “It has always been part of our business plan to hold FA Cup semi-final matches at Wembley. The money the FA generates from gate receipts and television revenue is returned and distributed among all the clubs who participate in the competition. This season we had 731 entrants and we anticipate that our total revenue will be in the region of £20 million.”

Ferguson has been a frequent critic of the amount invested in the stadium, which opened its doors 12 months ago. After last season’s Cup Final, which United lost 1-0 to Chelsea, he complained about the “ridiculous, extortionate” prices charged for fast food.

More recently he cited the Wembley pitch as a significant factor in the 3-2 defeat by Croatia in November that ended England’s hopes of qualifying for Euro 2008.

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