Prize bonanza set to boost FA Cup fortunes

The winners of the FA Cup next season will receive £2m in prize money, with the chance to double that with money generated by their ties being televised live.

The bonanza for the winners is part of a unique prize money system for the FA Cup announced yesterday that will see each team earn money for matches it wins from the preliminary-round stage onwards.

The introduction of prize money for winning each round is similar to the system employed by sports such as tennis and is an attempt by the Football Association to inject fresh enthusiasm into the competition after disappointing attendances and television audiences over the past few years.

The FA said yesterday that extra money would also be made available to clubs whose Cup matches are televised live. In total, £30m will be distributed through the new payment system.

The new system means that a non-league team which wins a qualifying round will receive £7,500, a substantial amount for a small clubs.

Teams whose matches are televised live in the first round will now receive £100,00, compared with £75,000 in the past.

The new system is particularly beneficial for non-league clubs who are increasingly making it to the first round, where professional clubs enter the FA Cup. A club that wins a a first-round match will receive £20,000 while a club that wins a third-round game, where Premiership and First Division teams come in, earn £50,000.

The FA's chief executive Adam Crozier said: "This is a unique way of ensuring that The FA Cup is used to redistribute money across every level of the game."

Sunderland's search for a right-back ended yesterday when Peter Reid added the Swiss international defender Bernt Haas to his squad.

The 23-year-old former Grasshopper Zurich player has signed a four-year deal for a fee understood to be in the region of £750,000.

The Rangers manager Dick Advocaat yesterday confirmed that the Everton defender Michael Ball was in Glasgow for transfer talks after a fee - believed to be £6.5m - had been agreed between the clubs.

The Ibrox manager revealed that both clubs are confident the deal will go through.

The Manchester United pair Mark Wilson and Jonathan Greening are about to rejoin Steve McClaren at Middlesbrough in a total £4m deal.

The two players were on Teesside yesterday having medicals and discussing personal terms.

Milan's German international striker Oliver Bierhoff is in talks with Southampton, the Italian daily Corriere dello Sport reported yesterday.

The paper said Bierhoff, whose chances at Milan look limited since the arrival of strikers Filippo Inzaghi and Javi Moreno, met a Southampton representative late on Thursday.

The former Liverpool manager Roy Evans was yesterday lured out of retirement by Swindon, thanks to the Wiltshire club's chairman Danny Donegan's friendship with Neil Ruddock.

Evans, 52, is the new director of football at the Second Division club, and the former Liverpool defender Ruddock has been appointed player-coach.

The pair have signed three-year deals at the County Ground.