How much winners earn and round breakdown

Alan Shearer, the Premier League’s all-time leading scorer, has made his love of the FA Cup clear.

“I would swap everything for a winner’s medal in this competition, I really would,” the Newcastle United icon gushed in 2004. “I’ve been fortunate to win a lot of individual awards but I’d swap the lot, even the championship medal I won at Blackburn.”

However, such sentiment was already out of fashion when Shearer pledged his allegiance to the world’s oldest football competition 20 years ago. “People might think I’m daft but I’m not wrong,” Shearer told the doubters. “I’d rather win the cup than the league.” (In any event, Shearer didn’t win a single major trophy at Newcastle.)

Two decades on, few fans of Premier League clubs share the same hierarchy as Shearer. Yet, that’s not to say that advancing in the FA Cup comes without any benefits. For the legion of clubs outside the top flight that define this historic competition, a deep cup run offers an incredible financial windfall.

Here’s a look at the money behind the magic of the cup.

The champions of the 143rd edition of England’s premier domestic cup competition earn a cool £2m for winning the final alone. The beaten finalists stand to take home £1m (per the Football Association).

There have been no amendments to the prize fund this year but the jackpot has taken a considerable hit since the COVID-19 pandemic. Arsenal, winners of the 2019/20 FA Cup, raked in £3.6m by winning the showpiece at an empty Wembley Stadium. As runners-up on that eery afternoon, Chelsea earned £1.8m, almost the same as Manchester City’s prize fund as champions last year.

As winners of the inaugural FA Cup in 1872, before the crossbar had been invented and the team that collected the out-of-bounds ball first took the throw-in, Wanderers earned £20 – the equivalent of less than £3,000 in today’s money.

Premier League and Championship clubs don’t enter the…