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The Football Association Challenge Cup, known worldwide as The FA Cup and for sponsorship reasons as The Emirates FA Cup, is an annual knockout cup competition in English football; it is the oldest association football competition in the world.〔(The oldest Cup competeti on [sic] in the world is at the fourth round stage, while Manchester United are in Premier League action ). Raidió Teilifís Éireann. Retrieved 22 January 2010.〕 The FA Cup is organised by and named after the Football Association. A concurrent women's tournament is also held, known as the FA Women's Cup. The FA Cup was first held in 1871–72. Entry is open to all teams who compete in the Premier League, the Football League and in Steps 1 to 5 of the FA National League System, as well as selected teams in Step 6.〔(The FA Cup, the FA Trophy, the FA Vase and the FA Youth Cup Competitions ) The FA.com. Retrieved 15 February 2011〕 This means that clubs of all standards compete, from the largest clubs in England and Wales down to amateur village teams. The tournament has become known for the possibility for "minnows" from the lower divisions to become "giant-killers" by eliminating top clubs from the tournament and even theoretically winning the Cup, although lower division teams rarely progress beyond the early stages. The qualification rounds and a system of byes mean that the very smallest and very biggest teams almost never meet. Arsenal are the current holders, having beaten Aston Villa 4–0 in the 2015 final to win the cup for the second year in a row. It was their 12th FA Cup title overall, making Arsenal the FA Cup's most successful club ahead of Manchester United on 11. ==Format== The competition is a knockout tournament with pairings for each round drawn at random. There are no seeds and the draw for each round is not made until after the scheduled dates for the previous round (except for the Preliminary and First Qualifying Rounds which are drawn at the same time as the Extra Preliminary Round). The draw also determines which teams will play at home. Each tie is played as a single leg. If a match is drawn, there is a replay, usually at the ground of the team who were away for the first game. Drawn replays are now settled with extra time and penalty shootouts; until the 1990s further replays would be played until one team was victorious. Some ties took as many as six matches to settle; in their 1975 campaign, Fulham played a total of 12 games over six rounds, which remains the most games played by a team to reach a final.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=TheFA.com – Hammers nail Fulham )〕 Replays were traditionally played three or four days after the original game, but from 1991–92 they were staged at least 10 days later on police advice. This led to penalty shoot-outs being introduced, the first of which came on 26 November 1991 when Rotherham United eliminated Scunthorpe United. Replays are no longer held for the semi-finals or final. There are a total of 14 rounds in the competition – six qualifying rounds, followed by six "proper", plus the semi-finals and the final. The qualifying rounds are regionalised to reduce the travel costs for smaller non-league sides. The First and Second Rounds were also previously split into Northern and Southern sections, but this practice was ended after the 1997–98 competition. The competition begins in August with the lowest-ranked clubs (those from level 9 and below of the league system), contesting the Extra Preliminary Round, followed by the Preliminary Round (when clubs from level 8 enter) and First Qualifying Round (level 7 clubs enter). Clubs in the Conference North and Conference South join in the Second Qualifying Round, and Conference Premier clubs join in the Fourth Qualifying Round. The 32 winners from that round progress to the First Round (often called the First Round Proper). They are joined by the 48 clubs from League One and League Two. Finally, teams from the Premier League and the Championship enter at the Third Round Proper, at which point there are 64 teams remaining in the competition. The Sixth Round Proper is the quarter-final stage, at which point eight teams remain. The FA Cup has a set pattern for when each round is played. Normally the First Round is played in mid-November, with the Second Round on one of the first two Saturdays in December. The Third Round is played on the first weekend in January, with the Fourth Round later in the month and Fifth Round in mid-February. The Sixth Round (or quarter-finals) traditionally occurs in early or mid March, with the semi-finals a month later. The final is normally held the Saturday after the Premier League season finishes in May. The only seasons in recent times when this pattern was not followed were 1999–2000, when most rounds were played a few weeks earlier than normal as an experiment, and 2010–11 and 2012–13 when the FA Cup Final was played before the Premier League season had finished, to allow Wembley Stadium to be ready for the UEFA Champions League final, as well as in 2011–12 to allow England time to prepare for that summer's European Championships. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「FA Cup」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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