Doug King makes Coventry City claim involving Ipswich Town as Man Utd FA Cup game looms | OneFootball

Coventry City owner Doug King has made an interesting statement about Ipswich Town ahead of his team's FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United.

The Sky Blues have had a very exciting ride to get to this point in the world's oldest football domestic cup competition. They've faced non-league underdogs in the form of Maidstone United, who beat Ipswich in the third round, at Portman Road.

That game was more about Maidstone and their achievement to even get to that point, but their quarter-final tie against Wolves was a barnstormer. It saw four goals scored from the 80th minute onwards, with Wanderers putting the ball past Bradley Collins in the 83rd and 88th minute to take a 2-1 lead.

If it had stopped there, the game would have been talked about for its late drama, but Coventry saw Wolves' antics in the dying embers of the match and raised them one. Ellis Simms' 97th minute equaliser, and Haji Wright's winner in the 100th minute won them the match and booked their ticket to Wembley.

The club have won the cup before. They lifted the iconic trophy in 1987, and it feels like the stars might be aligning for them again. But, amidst all the excitement around the game, the chairman of the Sky Blues has made compelling declaration about the Championship table, and what he would do to be atop it.

Doug King's Ipswich proclamation

Coventry's owner said that he would swap his team's place in the FA Cup semi-final to take the place of Ipswich at the top of the second tier. The two teams were meant to face each other this weekend, but City's cup duties meant that the fixture had to be postponed and rearranged.

Speaking on talkSPORT, ahead of the semi-final, King spoke about the buzz in the fanbase about the game on Sunday. "I’m feeling excited," said the Coventry executive chairman, via the Coventry Telegraph. "I think we are going to have 36,000 fans there, going fully decked out and hopefully they will help us get to where we need to get to."

Even though he, and everybody else associated with the club, is feeling all joyous about what could happen at the weekend, he made his ambitions about which division he wants to see his side in clear.

He said: "I have only been here for 15 months but getting out of League Two to One and then into the Championship and stabilising was a huge job from Mark [Robins] and his team driving it forward.

"Coming in at this point, we’re trying to go that extra mile, which is always the most difficult one, just to get out of the Championship which we know is skewed against us.

"I said I wanted a Cup run because we were a little bit disappointed last year when the Hollywood boys (of Wrexham) came up and took us out on the third round," added King. "And here we are in the semi-final, and I know the guys are up for it.

"It’s hugely exciting for our city and hopefully people can see what we’re doing from a wider scale and get re-engaged with us after a period of being out and about at different stadiums and having our challenges. So, for me, I’m super excited and it’s going to be a huge weekend for us."

When asked if he would swap places with the Tractor Boys in exchange for the Wembley trip, King claimed: "I’d probably take you up on it."

He continued: "Look, it’s so romantic [the FA Cup], 37 years on [from winning it] and everyone getting inspired again and we’re just rekindling people again after having gone away for a bit, and that’s what the FA Cup does.

"Our goal is to get out of the Championship and, as you say, we came back from the international break and won at Huddersfield, slipped up against Cardiff, took Leeds and then went a little bit off colour [at Southampton] and then obviously the Birmingham one, with a big game coming up, we’ll just gloss over that.

"But in my view we’re still in it and we’ll see what happens this weekend, see how this works through. "Everyone is dropping points and so it’s never over until it’s over and there could be many twists and turns, even to the last day, so hopefully we can keep our hopes alive until the last game of the season and hope for Birmingham to do us a favour against Norwich or West Brom slip up, those types of things.

"But listen, I would swap it to be honest with you because that’s our goal, and once we get this club out of the Championship it re-establishes us for good, or a longer period and that will be hugely welcome to what we can do at the club."

23/24 FA Cup run could act as a catalyst for Coventry's promotion

Bringing in good revenue isn't always a guarantee of success; the Sky Blues have learned that this season. If reports are to be believed, they got £35 million from the sales of Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer last summer, and they look all but set to miss out on the play-offs, having got to the final last year.

Even though they will make more from those departures than they will from prize money from this season's FA CUP run, the problem was that they lost those key players. The money that they earn from the cup doesn't lead to any talent going.

Purely from prize money, so no revenue from their games being broadcast is included in this, the Sky Blues will make at least £1.4 million from their 23/24 FA Cup run. If they beat Man United, then that will increase to £2.9 million, and they'll bag an extra million more than that if they win the whole thing.

That is completely fresh, unexpected money that can go straight into improving the club, whether it's facilities, players, staff; whatever it may be.

Something like this can be the cog that gets the whole wheel turning, and King will certainly hope that ends up being the case.