FA Cup First Round Upsets: What the Winners Earned, and the Full 2026/27 Prize Money

Two non-league clubs knocked EFL opposition out of the FA Cup first round this weekend. Wimborne Town of the seventh tier beat Crawley Town of League Two 2-0, and Kidderminster Harriers of the National League beat League One Doncaster Rovers 3-0. Both receive £47,750 in prize money for it. TNT Sports selected the Wimborne tie for live broadcast and not the Kidderminster one, which added £50,000 to Wimborne's return and nothing to Kidderminster's.

The upsets

Wimborne Town play in the Southern League Premier Division South, Step 3 of the National League System and the seventh tier, three divisions below Crawley. They had never reached the second round before. Their only previous appearance in the first round was in 1982/83, when they lost 4-0 at Aldershot.

Kidderminster Harriers beat Doncaster Rovers 3-0 across two tiers, from the fifth to the third. Salisbury of National League South beat Sholing 6-0 in front of a record crowd of 3,450 at the Raymond McEnhill Stadium to reach the second round for the first time in the reformed club's history. Sholing play in the Southern League Premier Division South, the same seventh-tier division as Wimborne Town. Exeter City of League Two won 2-1 at Huddersfield Town, the League One leaders.

Three non-league clubs came closer still. Stafford Rangers of Northern Premier League Division One West, the eighth tier and the joint lowest-ranked club left in the competition, drew 3-3 with Grimsby Town of League Two and lost 3-2 on penalties. Cray Wanderers of the Isthmian League Premier Division, the seventh tier, led Stockport County of League One 2-0 against ten men before losing 3-2 in extra time. Altrincham of the National League drew 2-2 with League One Notts County in heavy fog and lost 3-2 on penalties.

Reading beat Peterborough United 5-0 in an all League One tie, which was Peterborough's first exit at the first round stage in 21 years, with Charlie Savage scoring against his father. Elsewhere Oxford City of National League North lost 4-2 at home to League One Leicester City on Friday night, and Blackpool needed extra time to beat Hornchurch of the National League 2-1. Wigan Athletic won 3-0 at Boreham Wood, who went into the tie top of the National League, Barnsley beat Aldershot Town of the same division 7-2, and Chesterfield of League Two beat Yeovil Town, also fifth tier, 4-3. Bradford City beat Marine of National League North 7-0, Burton Albion won 4-0 at eighth-tier AFC Rushden & Diamonds, and Plymouth Argyle beat Alvechurch of the Southern League Premier Division Central 4-0.

What the winners earned

Every first round winner receives £47,750 and every loser £15,800. On top of that, the FA selected eight ties for live broadcast and confirmed on 22 October that all sixteen clubs involved receive a live television broadcast fee of £50,000. Under Rule 281 of the competition rules that fee is paid directly to the clubs and is not shared with the opponent.

That produces a wide spread across clubs that achieved the same thing. Wimborne Town's televised win is worth £97,750. Kidderminster Harriers, who beat a club two tiers above them without the cameras there, receive £47,750 from the round, and because National League clubs are exempt until the fourth qualifying round their total from the competition is £57,125. Crawley Town, who lost, collect £65,800, which is more than Kidderminster have earned from the entire competition.

Across the whole round the FA has allocated £1,910,000 to the forty winners and £632,000 to the forty losers, a total of £2,542,000 in prize money, with a further £800,000 in broadcast fees to the sixteen televised clubs. Two of those televised ties are still to be settled, Oldham Athletic against Sheffield Wednesday and Plymouth Parkway against Berkhamsted, and the fee is payable to all four clubs regardless of the results. Parkway and Berkhamsted both play in the Southern League Premier Division South, so the only all non-league tie the FA selected will pay £50,000 each to two clubs from the same seventh-tier division.

Wimborne Town: £118,375

Wimborne entered at the first qualifying round, as all Step 3 clubs did, and have progressed through five ties since September, including a penalty shootout win over Weston-super-Mare. They drew 0-0 at home with Portishead Town of the Western League Premier Division and won the replay 3-1 after extra time. They drew 1-1 at Weston-super-Mare of National League South, drew the home replay 1-1 and won 4-3 on penalties. They won 2-1 at Crowborough Athletic of the Isthmian League South East Division in the third qualifying round, then beat Chelmsford City, also of National League South, 1-0 at home in the fourth, before beating Crawley. Two of those five opponents were one tier above Wimborne, one was three tiers above, and two came from lower tiers.

Those five rounds pay £68,375, and with the £50,000 broadcast fee the club has earned £118,375 from this season's competition. The second round pays £79,500 to the winner and £21,200 to the loser.

Stafford Rangers: £88,994

Stafford entered at the extra preliminary round on 8 August and won six rounds to reach the first round, which is the longest possible route into it. They beat Tividale 5-0, Matlock Town 2-1 and Northampton ON Chenecks 3-0 at home, then beat Hereford of National League North 3-2. They drew 1-1 at home with Halesowen Town of the Southern League Premier Division Central and won the replay 2-1 away. In the fourth qualifying round they drew 1-1 at Gateshead of the National League, three tiers above them, and won the home replay 5-0. Three of their six victories came against clubs from a higher tier than their own.

The six rounds pay £23,194. With £15,800 for the first round defeat and the £50,000 broadcast fee, Stafford have earned £88,994 across nine FA Cup matches, including two qualifying round replays. That is more than Crawley Town of League Two have earned from the competition.

Table one: extra preliminary round to fourth qualifying round

The FA records these as a number of clubs receiving each payment, with one winner and one loser paid in every fixture. Winning all six rounds pays £23,194, and only a club entering at the extra preliminary round can collect all of it. Those are the Level 9 clubs plus the Level 8 clubs that were newly promoted or finished among the 91 lowest-ranked by points per game last season. The remaining Level 8 clubs enter at the preliminary round, the 88 Level 7 clubs at the first qualifying round, the 48 National League North and South clubs at the second qualifying round, and the 24 National League clubs at the fourth qualifying round. No new clubs enter at the third qualifying round.

Winning through from the first qualifying round, as Wimborne did, pays £20,625. From the second qualifying round it is £18,375. A National League club exempt until the fourth qualifying round receives £9,375 for reaching the same place, which is what Kidderminster earned before the first round.

The payment attaches to the round rather than the match. Wimborne played four matches to win their first two qualifying rounds and were paid £5,625 for the two rounds. A replay brings a second gate and a second set of expenses but no additional prize money.

Table two: first round to the final

The FA publishes no losers' payment from the fourth round onwards except at the semi-final and the final. Winning every tie from the first round to the final pays £4,271,250. Winning every tie from the extra preliminary round to the final pays £4,294,444 and takes fourteen victories.

The largest proportional increase in winners' payments comes between the fourth qualifying round and the first round, where the figure rises more than fivefold, from £9,375 to £47,750. In cash terms the largest step is the final, which pays £1,060,000 more than the semi-final. Of the rounds from the first round onwards, the smallest increase is between the third round and the fourth, where the payment rises by £5,500, from £121,500 to £127,000. A club that loses in the first round receives £15,800, which is more than the £9,375 it earned for winning the fourth qualifying round to get there.

The total prize fund

The FA publishes the payments per club rather than a headline total. Applying those published payments to the number of clubs scheduled to receive them in each round produces a prize fund allocation of £21,500,000 for the rounds from the first round to the final and £1,986,300 for the six qualifying rounds, making £23,486,300 for the competition as a whole. That is The Pyramid's calculation rather than a total published by the FA, it excludes television fees and all matchday revenue, and it is an allocation for the season rather than money already distributed, since the competition has only reached the first round.

The third round is the largest single distribution at £4,736,000, because thirty-two ties are paid at £121,500 and £26,500, and it is the round at which the twenty Premier League and twenty-four Championship clubs enter.

How the gate is divided

Rule 230.1 provides for the equal division of net gate receipts between the two clubs, after the deductions the rules permit, and Rule 231 requires the clubs to share the deficit if receipts do not cover eligible expenses. Those arrangements apply to the rounds before the semi-finals, which are played at neutral venues under separate provisions. Cheltenham Town's 2-0 win over FC Halifax Town on Saturday, watched by 2,961 including 339 away supporters, produced a shared gate rather than a retained one.

Rule 230.2 applies from the third round to the quarter-final. Where a non-league club meets a Premier League or EFL club in those rounds, eligible net gate receipts are divided 55% to the non-league club and 45% to the league club. On £500,000 of eligible net gate receipts that is £275,000 rather than £250,000. It is the clearest piece of redistribution in the competition, and it explains why a third round draw at a large ground remains the target for every non-league club still involved.

Prize money, broadcast fees and the gate are not the whole return. Clubs also take income from sponsorship, hospitality, catering and merchandise on the back of a cup run, and from the exposure itself. Those amounts depend on each club's own commercial arrangements and cannot be read off the FA's published prize fund.

Replays

Replays were removed from the FA Cup from the first round onwards for the 2024/25 season, a change the FA and the Premier League attributed to the expansion of the UEFA competitions and the congestion of the calendar. EFL clubs objected on two grounds: the loss of revenue from hosting a larger club a second time, and their exclusion from the decision.

Replays remain in the qualifying rounds, where both Wimborne Town and Stafford Rangers played two apiece this season. Three of this weekend's televised ties were level after 90 minutes, and under the previous rules each would have gone to a replay, creating another fixture and another set of shared gate receipts, subject to expenses. Instead Stafford Rangers, Altrincham and Cray Wanderers all went out on the day.

Disclosure: Peterborough United, Cheltenham Town and Boreham Wood are commercial partners of The Pyramid. This relationship has no bearing on the publication's independent editorial coverage.