The Senior Cup Stalemate

On 23 October 2025, Southport FC released a statement confirming that they would not fulfil their scheduled Liverpool County FA Senior Cup tie against City of Liverpool FC. The announcement set out the club’s reasons in unusually strong terms and has since prompted debate over integrity, governance and the relevance of county competitions in the modern game.

The statement centred on a financial dispute arising from a series of loan agreements between the two clubs during the 2024–25 season, involving Finlay Heath and Renato De Oliveira Gomes. Southport said that City of Liverpool FC had failed to make any payment for the players’ services across three separate loan periods between November and February, despite “repeated reminders and opportunities to settle these debts”. The club said it had “exercised patience and professionalism at every stage”, but that the continued failure to honour the agreements “represents a complete breakdown in good faith”. It added that “it is entirely unacceptable to incur further costs or extend hospitality to a club that has repeatedly disregarded its financial and professional responsibilities”. Southport confirmed that the Liverpool County FA had been formally notified of its position and that the club expected the matter to be dealt with appropriately.

City of Liverpool FC responded with their own statement the same day, rejecting Southport’s allegations and accusing them of issuing inaccurate invoices. They claimed that one invoice double-counted a previous period and inflated a £25-per-week loan fee into a charge of £400 for a single month. They also allege that the same error was repeated in subsequent invoices, producing what they described as “erroneous payments”. They stated that they had already paid the correct amounts and had made their position clear to both the North West Counties Football League and the Liverpool County FA. Their statement also made unflattering remarks about one of the players’ professionalism during the loan spell. The overall tone made clear that City of Liverpool consider the matter closed, describing Southport’s comments as inaccurate and rejecting the notion of any outstanding debt.

Neither Heath nor Gomes remains with Southport. Both have since moved on to new clubs, though Renato was a product of the club’s fledgling academy programme. For Southport, his loan spell was part of a developmental pathway intended to give young players exposure to senior football. Any club taking on a teenager through such a loan carries a duty of care to educate that player in professional standards and expectations. The purpose of a loan at that age is to help a young player learn, not to criticise or publicly diminish them. That element of City of Liverpool’s response jarred with many supporters who read both statements side by side.

The Liverpool County FA Senior Cup is administered directly by the Association’s Board of Directors and Competitions Advisory Group. The rules for 2025–26 are unambiguous. Rule 4(G) states that “any club refusing or failing to fulfil a Competition Cup match shall be adjudged to have forfeited the game and shall be dealt with by the Board of Directors or the Competitions Advisory Group who may impose a fine.” Rule 4(H) adds that “no club shall be allowed to withdraw from this competition without the consent of the Board of Directors or the Competitions Advisory Group.” Rule 14 allows the same body to fine or otherwise penalise any club failing to comply with its instructions. The accompanying Quick Rules document also insists that County Cup fixtures take precedence over all league games and must be played unless the Competition grants a postponement.

Both documents are available via the Liverpool County FA’s official website.

In reality, few people in the modern game treat these competitions as anything close to a priority. Supporters rarely attend them in meaningful numbers, players and managers often view them as an unwanted distraction, and most clubs fulfil the fixtures only because they have to. The rulebook may still talk about “prestige” and “obligation”, but County Cups now exist almost entirely through administrative momentum. Even when clubs field strong sides, it is often for convenience rather than conviction.

Southport’s decision therefore sits at an awkward crossroads between moral protest and procedural expectation. The club’s argument is that it should not be required to host or entertain an opponent that it believes has acted without integrity. From its perspective, doing so would undermine the very standards the competition claims to uphold. However, by refusing to play, Southport are almost certainly in breach of the Senior Cup rules. There is no provision for a club to opt out of a fixture on moral or financial grounds, even if it feels justified. The only recognised course would have been to submit a formal complaint to the Liverpool County FA or to The FA’s disciplinary structures while still fulfilling the fixture.

The County FA is therefore left with a difficult decision. If it enforces the rules strictly, Southport are likely to forfeit the tie and could face a fine. If it sympathises with the club’s position, it risks weakening the authority of its own competition and setting a precedent that others might later rely on. Based on past county-level examples, the most probable outcome is a forfeit accompanied by a disciplinary review. Southport may be sanctioned for non-fulfilment, while the alleged non-payment issue could be referred separately for investigation or mediation. The County FA will need to determine whether it has jurisdiction over what is essentially a private financial agreement between clubs. Often such disputes fall outside County FA control unless they breach FA or league regulations.

Whatever the decision, this incident exposes a long-standing problem in the non-league game: there are very few mechanisms to resolve financial disagreements between clubs other than formal legal action. For most, moral protest or public exposure is the only realistic alternative.

The irony of all this is that the competition at the heart of the dispute is one that few now care about. County Cups once carried local prestige, but their relevance has faded steadily for decades. Most supporters regard them as meaningless, and clubs often field mixed or reserve sides simply to meet the requirement to participate. In previous pieces on this website, I have explored whether County Cup fixtures should even be counted as first-class games in a club’s playing record. After years of debate, I reached the conclusion that they should not. Former club statistician Geoff Wilde took that stance from the outset, and the FA’s own guidance now confirms that Senior County Cup fixtures are not treated as first-team matches for disciplinary or suspension purposes. While the results are recorded for completeness, they do not count towards Southport’s heritage statistics. That distinction mirrors the reality of modern football: these games exist on paper more than they do in the hearts or minds of players and fans.

Southport’s refusal to play is both a statement of principle and, perhaps unintentionally, a reflection of how little importance these fixtures now hold. City of Liverpool’s response, meanwhile, is grounded in defending their accounting and reputation. The Liverpool County FA finds itself caught in the middle, tasked with upholding competition rules that most of its participants would quietly prefer to ignore.

Neither club, nor the Liverpool County FA, has made any further public statement since. The position therefore remains unclear. Southport repeated their statement in the match programme for the home game against King’s Lynn Town on Saturday 1 November, suggesting that the club’s stance remains unchanged.

Disclaimer

This article reflects information publicly available at the time of publication and draws on released statements, official rule documents, and past research into County Cup competitions. It does not represent the views of Southport Football Club, City of Liverpool FC, or the Liverpool County FA, and no inference should be made beyond the material quoted or cited.