EVERYONE involved in the FA Cup would have been happy with the ultimate glamour tie on Saturday between Arsenal and Manchester United. Everyone that is except the loser. A sell-out crowd at Old Trafford, a peak TV audience of 7.4 million. And this was a competition that a couple of years ago was struggling for credibility when compared with the title race or qualification for the Champions League.

Perhaps the surge of interest is because Premiership clubs — particularly Manchester United — are again granting it the respect it deserves. But some credit is also due to the FA for its repackaging of the event.

In an era when many fans complain about the over-commercialisation of the sport, the FA has cleaned up its presentation of the knockout competition. No title sponsor, no company ribbons fluttering on the handles of the coveted silver-plated Cup. Instead, the FA has remodelled its Cup on the Champions League, selling it to a “family” of sponsors, none of which can claim ownership or more prominence than the competition itself. It is a sponsorship structure also applied to the England team.

So the clutter of logos around the field of play has been reduced. Instead, as viewers of the England friendly against Australia last week may have noticed (if they had not switched off the TV or walked out of Upton Park), each of the four FA sponsors gets its turn at being the only perimeter hoarding advertiser. They are rotated electronically every three minutes, leaving each to hope that a goal is scored when it is their slot.

Six months into a set of four-year sponsorship deals, the FA believes that Umbro, Nationwide, Carlsberg and McDonald’s are happy after receiving feedback during the second quarterly presentation last week that lasted 14 hours. If there are any early criticisms, it may be that some of the sponsors — Nationwide in particular — are not getting as much direct exposure as they were used to.

Even the FA acknowledges that there are TV scheduling problems with FA Cup matches, either because of potential clashes with other fixtures or objections to late weekend games by the country’s two biggest police forces, in London and Manchester. This has upset the broadcasters. If more than half the viewing population watched Saturday’s fifth-round tie at lunchtime, imagine the BBC’s audience share on a Sunday night. Meanwhile, BSkyB is often left with a second-choice fixture with the narrow appeal of a Nationwide League first division game.

It would be surprising if it were happy to renew on the same terms. The broadcasters have already opened talks over the renewal of their joint £400 million deal for the FA Cup, which expires in 18 months.

THE damning revelations about the transfer dealings of some clubs contained in Tom Bower’s new book could do little to depress the reputation of football agents in the Square Mile. The City has already dumped the stock as quickly as an under-performing manager gets the sack. Among the listed agencies, First Artist Corporation, which last week issued a profits warning, is trading at 5½p, Proactive Sports is at 5p, while Premier Management Holdings is still languishing at 2½p.

THE administrators for Port Vale are expected to accept a bid for the club this week that will appease supporters who are fearful that they might be merged with neighbouring Stoke City. The second division club went into administration in December with debts of more than £2 million. Vale, estimated to be losing £500,000 a year, attracted interest from five potential buyers — none of whom was named Robbie Williams, the multimillionaire popstar and lifelong Vale fan.

The Football League is unlikely to sanction the bid by Stoke Holdings, leaving Vale to be fought over by Mo Chaudry, the millionaire owner of Waterworld, a consortium headed by former chairman Jim Lloyd, business partners Steve Ball and Iain McIntosh, and supporter-based consortium Valiant 2001.

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