The 2017–18 Irish Cup (known as the Tennent's Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) was the 138th edition of the Irish Cup, the premier knockout cup competition in Northern Irishfootball since its introduction in 1881. The competition began on 19 August 2017 and concluded with the final at Windsor Park in May 2018.
Linfield are the defending champions, having defeated Coleraine 3–0 in the 2017 final.
A new system for penalty shoot-outs will be trialled as sanctioned by the International Football Association Board to test a different sequence of taking penalties. Known as "ABBA", it mirrors the serving sequence in a tennis tie-break i.e. team A takes the first penalty, team B takes the second penalty, team B takes the third penalty, etc.[1][2]
Format and schedule
All ties level after 90 minutes used extra time to determine the winner, with a penalty shoot-out to follow if necessary.
130 clubs entered this season's competition, an increase of four clubs compared with the 2016–17 total of 126 clubs. 94 regional league clubs from tiers 4–7 in the Northern Ireland football league system entered the competition in the first round, 12 of whom received a bye into the Round 2A. (Strabane Athletic were originally excluded, but were reinstated after the first-round draw had been made, necessitating a further draw for 'Round 2A' between Strabane and the eleven clubs that had received a first-round bye, with one tie drawn and ten further byes.[3][4]). The 41 first-round winners were joined by winner and the ten byes from Round 2A and the 12 clubs of the NIFL Premier Intermediate League in the second round. After two further rounds, with the eight surviving clubs joining the 24 senior NIFL Premiership and NIFL Championship clubs in the fifth round. All ties level after 90 minutes used extra time to determine the winner, with a penalty shoot-out to follow if necessary.
The twelve members of the NIFL Premier Intermediate League join the competition at this stage as well as the first-round winners, and the winners and byes from Round 2A.
Matches were due to be played on 3 March 2018 but only the Glenavon/Loughgall fixture was completed on this date. The three remaining fixtures were played on 13 March 2018.
