THERE’S a scene in bonkers comedy movie The Other Guys when Will Ferrell’s meek cop is confronted by long-suffering partner Mark Wahlberg.

“If you weren’t in my food chain, I would go out of my way to attack you,” he roars. “If I was a lion and you were a tuna, I’d go out of my way to eat you.”

What follows is arguably the most intricate, intelligent and, above all, hilarious dismantling of an argument committed to celluloid to which Ferrell draws a perceptive conclusion.

“Did that go the way you thought it was going to go? Nope.”

Football’s lions and tunas (you see where I’m going with this now) rarely have an opportunity to put the debate to the test.

And while the League Cup has its champions – not least Liverpool this season – the FA Cup provides the one true platform to give clubs of all standards the chance to do battle with more exalted opposition.

Except it’s losing its edge. The lustre, the sheen, the magic, are all being eroded and diminished. The tunas are rarely being given a chance.

Of course, this has been happening for some time. But what isn’t going to help is the introduction of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative.

Put bluntly, it appears a charter to not only prevent the big teams from becoming too big, but also stop the small clubs from being anything other than small.