Crystal Palace are "surprised and disappointed" that the club's FA Cup third-round tie at Brighton has been scheduled to kick off at 7:45pm on Monday January 8 after being selected for live television coverage. On Thursday, Sussex Police apologised for wrongly claiming discarded weapons had been found at the stadium. The match was selected for live broadcast on BT Sport in the Monday evening slot, despite reservations over the potential for further issues. Planned rail engineering works also made it difficult to clear an afternoon kick-off over the FA Cup third-round weekend. Palace have also complained about a reduced ticket allocation of 2,000 when the south London club "should be entitled to more than 4,600 tickets under normal FA Cup rules".

Source: Evening echo December 08, 2017 16:52 UTC