Lens agree to let Aruna Dindane play in FA Cup final

French club Lens will let on-loan Portsmouth striker Aruna Dindane play in the FA Cup final on 15 May after ending a dispute over payments.

Lens had insisted Pompey must pay £3.5m if the 29-year-old forward played another game for south coast club.

"Aruna in on his way back with a letter from Lens," Pompey's administrator Andrew Andronikou told BBC Sport.

"I've been told he can play the rest of our games - including the Chelsea final - and we won't have to pay any money."

The Ivory Coast international, who joined Lens from Belgian club Anderlecht in 2005, has been with Pompey since August and played in the 2-0 FA Cup semi-final win over Spurs, winning the penalty for Portsmouth's second goal.

That was his 21st game for Portsmouth, but a 22nd appearance would have triggered the additional payment under the terms of Dindane's loan deal, which is a sum that cash-strapped Pompey do not have.

Earlier in the season Lens were in dispute with Portsmouth over instalment payments involving Dindane's loan move as well as Nadir Belhadj's permanent transfer in December 2008.

Meanwhile, following the appointment of David Lampitt, the Football Association's head of football integrity as Portsmouth's new chief executive earlier in April, Andronikou is planning more boardroom changes.

When Pompey became the first Premier League club to enter administration earlier this year the club were labelled "completely dysfunctional".

Accountant Nick O'Reilly of Vantis, who had prepared the financial statement that Pompey had to submit to the High Court in February, said Pompey's business methods had gone "against all good governance".

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Portsmouth hit by more injuries ahead of FA Cup final

Portsmouth are facing a race against time to get key players fit for the FA Cup final against Chelsea on 15 May.

Midfielder Richard Hughes was distraught as he hobbled out of Saturday's 3-1 victory over Wolves at Fratton Park with a hamstring injury.

The problem looks almost certain to rule him out of the trip to Wembley.

Striker Aruna Dindane (groin) and defensive midfielder Aaron Mokoena (calf) were also replaced at half-time against Wolves.

They join Tal Ben-Haim (groin), Marc Wilson (hamstring), Ricardo Rocha (thigh), Angelos Basinas (hamstring), Jamie O'Hara (back), Hassan Yebda (thigh) and Nadir Belhadj (hamstring) in a packed treatment room.

Scotland international Hughes, 30, was not selected for the 2008 FA Cup final squad, and now looks set to miss out on Wembley again.

"I am sorry for Richard, because in the last two months he has been very good for us," said Pompey boss Avram Grant.

"It is a shame. He always gives 100%."

O'Hara, 23, was ineligible to face his parent club Tottenham in the semi-final, but is in line to be fit for the final.

The midfielder was at Fratton Park on Saturday to collect what was a clean sweep of Pompey's player-of-the-season awards.

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FA Cup – Wembley to relay pitch seven times a year

The turf at England’s international football stadium (pictured) came in for heavy criticism following the FA Cup semi-finals on April 10 and 11, with Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill and Tottenham counterpart Harry Redknapp pointing the finger at its use for rock concerts and other events.

The Institute of Groundsmanship revealed that, because of ongoing loan repayments, the stadium has to remain multi-purpose until 2023.

The news comes as work continues on the venue’s 11th surface since 2007.

The FA, the consultants who oversee Wembley ground-staff and the Institute of Groundsmanship are all due to attend a meeting to formulate a plan to effectively maintain the pitch.

“This really is crunch time now: the FA and Wembley simply have to find a solution to this problem,” said BBC Sport correspondent Dan Roan.

“That 11th new pitch is a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”

Redknapp was scathing in his criticism of the pitch following Spurs’ shock 2-0 defeat to relegated Portsmouth.

Pompey will face Chelsea in the FA Cup final after they beat Villa, whose boss O’Neill was also critical of the surface.

The pitch then hosted a Guinness Premiership rugby match between London rivals Saracens and Harlequins and in May is due to hold the FA Cup final, four play-off finals and England’s World Cup warm-up against Mexico.

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After Teams Collapse, Fans Enjoy Final Surprise

Portsmouth — known as Pompey in England — became the first Premier League club to go into administration for insolvency, allowing it to continue doing business. On March 17, the league punished it for that with a mandatory 9-point deduction in the standings. On April 10, it became certain of relegation.

“All the guys I sit with have been going for 40 years,” Payne said. “They’re die-hard Pompey fans, and to a man, they’re saying they can’t wait to get out of the Premier League.”

They will observe next season in the quieter 24-team second tier, but some fans prepared for the team’s liquidation.

“There was definitely an element of fans, that if it meant an absolute clean start, we were ready for it,” Dewing said. “It wouldn’t have been the end of the world, and it would have risen from the ashes. It might be rubbish, but it’s our rubbish.”

Jim Riordan, a fan since 1944, wrote in an e-mail message, “They will not take our club away from us.”

The F.A. Cup became a curious balm. “Que Sera Sera” T-shirts sold in the club shop. A roster hopeless in league play and almost unrecognizable from 2008 somehow eliminated Coventry, Sunderland, Southampton and Birmingham to reach the F.A. Cup semifinals. Fans repeatedly sang: “Que sera sera/Whatever will be, will be/We’re going to Wembley. ...”

Awaiting them there were Redknapp and Tottenham, which defeated Portsmouth, 2-0, in league play on March 27. Yet on the muddy field at Wembley, Portsmouth wrestled Tottenham into extra time without a goal, then scored twice for unimaginable mirth.

As a roar blared through the stadium, a banner read, “You Can Break Many Things, but You Can’t Break Our Spirit.”

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outside of the top division

Linked to this giant-killing is the progression of teams beyond what would normally be expected. A few teams have won the FA Cup whilst outside of the top division, though no team from the third level of the football league has progressed to the final. For non-league teams, reaching the third round - where all top flight sides now enter - is considered a major achievement.

The 2008-09 FA Cup saw a record nine teams achieve this feat, and whilst Tottenham Hotspur won the 1901 FA Cup as a Southern League club, no non-league team has since progressed past the fifth round, this occurring most recently to Kidderminster Harriers in 1994. Chasetown are the lowest ranked team to play in the third round, playing eventual runners-up Cardiff City in the 2007–08 competition. The game took place on 5 January 2008 whilst Chasetown were playing in the Southern League Division One Midlands, the eighth tier of the English football pyramid.

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Giant-killers

Aside from the non-top-flight winners mentioned below, the FA Cup has a long tradition of lower-ranked teams becoming "giant-killers" by defeating opponents from a higher division. While it is common for this to happen (one statistical analysis based on four years of results showed that the probability of at least one team beating one from a higher division in a given year was 99.85%, dropping to 48.8% for a two-division gap and 39.28% for a three-division gap), it is considered particularly newsworthy when the "victim" is one of the top Premier League teams, or where the giant-killer are from outside the League divisions. The most recent example of a non-league team beating top-flight opposition was Sutton United's victory over Coventry City in 1988-89.

Giant-killings of various scales happen every year: almost every club in the League Pyramid has a fondly-remembered "giant-killing" act in its history and some small clubs have, whether by accident or design, gained a reputation for being "cup specialists" after two or more such feats within a few years. Overall, Yeovil Town currently hold the record of having won more games against league opposition than any other as a non-league team.

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Sponsorship

Since the start of the 1994–95 season, the FA Cup has been sponsored. However, to protect the identity of the famous competition, the name has never changed from "The FA Cup", unlike sponsorship deals for the League Cup. Instead, the competition has been known as "The FA Cup sponsored by ..." but during 1999–2002, the competition was known as "The AXA Sponsored FA Cup". The competition is formally named "The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON", owing to energy company E.ON sponsoring it for four years from 2006. From August 2006 to 2014, Umbro will supply match balls for all FA Cup matches.

* 1995–1998 Littlewoods
* 1999–2002 AXA
* 2003–2006 Nationwide
* 2006–2010 E.ON

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