FA Cup, 2019

FA Cup 2018-19 season review

The final of the 138th edition of the FA Cup was held at Wembley Stadium on 18 May 2019

A total of 736 clubs competed with the Extra preliminary round commencing on 11 August 2018.

Ticket prices for the final ranged from £45 to £145. Manchester City and Watford both received an allocation of around 28,000 tickets.

Chelsea were the defending holders having beaten Manchester United 1-0 in the final on 19 May 2018.

As well as the trophy, the winners earned £3.6million (£6.8million in total, including payments from previous rounds) from the FA Cup prize fund.

As the winners, Manchester City qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League in 2019-20. However, as they finished in the top four of the Premier League, their place was allocated to the next-highest ranked Premier League team who had not qualified for UEFA competitions (Wolverhampton Wanderers). The runners-up do not qualify.

Having already won the Premier League title and League Cup in this season, Manchester City became the first-ever team to complete the domestic treble in England.

With their 6-0 win against Watford, Manchester City equalled the record for the biggest winning margin in a FA Cup Final (also 6-0 by Bury against Derby County in 1903).

The domestic broadcasting rights were awarded to the BBC and BT Sport.

This was the fourth year of a sponsorship deal with a Dubai-based airline when the FA Cup was rebranded as the Emirates FA Cup.

This was the first of a three-year partnership with football supplier, Mitre. They would provide matchballs across all FA competitions. The new Delta Max model was used from the 2nd round onwards in the FA Cup.

A sudden-death format (extra-time and penalties, if required) was applied from the 5th round stage for the first time. Therefore, replays were only played up to and including the 4th round.

Following a two-year trial, this was the third year that allowed for a fourth substitution during the extra-time period.

The traditional alternative-style format was used for penalty shoot-outs.

As only Premier League stadiums contained the required permanent camera angles, VAR was only made available at selected ties, in addition to the semi-finals and final at Wembley.

The total attendance of the 123 ties in the proper rounds was 1,774,580; an average of 11,831.

Details shown under the 'Goal scorers' tab on this page refer to Premier League clubs in the 2018-19 season only.