The first leg is next Wednesday at White Hart Lane, and an announcement on the official Spurs site says that they couldn't supply Arsenal with the 15% specified by the rules of the competition, because of "police advice concerning fan safety", and that the matter has been referred to the FA for arbitration. The matter will be decided tomorrow but in the meantime Tottenham have provided us with 3000 tickets (these tickets are now being sold by the Arsenal). Note that Southend United took up their full allocation of 5,500 in the previous round.

It's ridiculous, but it does seem that Arsenal started it.

According to (for example) The Mail, it was Arsenal who first refused to meet the 15% requirement, offering Tottenham just 5,000 tickets at the 'Emirates' stadium, which represents just over 8%. Arsenal also gave the 'safety concerns' argument, citing correspondence from the Football Licensing Authority in support. Apparently, Tottenham's stance is just a response to this, wanting parity on percentages.

The Mail also claim that there is an issue regarding pricing, as Tottenham wanted Arsenal to sell tickets at full price in order to maximise their cut. We find it hard to believe that they wouldn't support reduced costs to their own fans.

Articles from the Online Gooner and A Cultured Left Foot say pretty much all that needs to be said about this. It's Arsenal's responsibility to know the rules of the competitions they play in; they should have and presumably did know those rules when the new stadium was being designed. The idea that you can't segregate 15% of the ground is just absurd. This is a ground with aspirations to being used as a neutral venue - for cup semi-finals, international matches, European finals and so on. You need to be able to be flexible and if there really is some kind of problem then it's Arsenal's job to sort it out.

Maybe they know that, and until there's official word from Arsenal we'll hold off from being too critical of the club. Perhaps the advice is for real and perhaps Arsenal have made a genuine mistake and are doing all they can to rectify it.

The stories in the papers don't seem to tell the whole story. For example, one thing we don't understand so far is what the actual content of the dispute is. If we offered 8% and they responded by saying "ok, you can have 8% too", where is the disagreement? Surely Arsenal can't be complaining about this?

Expect the meeting tomorrow to come up with some sort of compromise, which must surely support Tottenham's 'parity'. But it's hard not to feel that the upshot of all this in the long run is likely to be a rule change. In football's playground, the squabbling kids have the power.

Meanwhile, in the other cup, Cardiff_City travel to White Hart Lane tonight for their FA Cup third round replay. Best of luck to Arsenal right-back Kerrea Gilbert, who can expect a hot reception. It'll be interesting to see if City's notorious fans get up to anything tonight (there were disturbances involving both sets of supporters at Ninian Park in the first match). Any difficulties in maintaining safe conditions this evening will surely be reflected in tomorrow's decision.