daib0 Sat 24 Jan 2015, 9:43 pm
CAMBRIDGE
Minnows in the money
Richard Money's tongue may have only been partially in his cheek when he claimed Cambridge chairman Dave Doggett would have been unhappy had they deprived themselves of that trip to Old Trafford by scoring a late winner.
Manchester United - according to the Deloitte list published this week - are the second richest club in the world with a revenue of £433.2m in 2013/14. Cambridge, in contrast, have a turnover of £1.6m and have flirted with extinction in the last decade.
Money admitted the financial difference the replay at Old Trafford would make is "mind blowing." The game may be worth up to £1.7m, more than Cambridge's annual budget on top of the reported £500,000 already raked in from this first game.
A small part of Cambridge will decamp to Old Trafford on 3 February and, with the possibility of a crowd in excess of 70,000, this well-deserved draw has played its part in further securing Cambridge's financial future.
United's annual wage bill is in excess of £200m - Falcao earns £265,000-a-week as part of his loan deal from Monaco - while Cambridge's outlay is £1.1m.
To watch Cambridge's players throwing themselves behind goalkeeper Dunn when it looked like Di Maria might snatch a late goal was proof that the FA Cup meant more than money to these players - but there will have been plenty of smiling faces in the boardroom at The Abbey Stadium.