FA: Wembley will host semi's March 19 2008
FA chairman Lord Triesman insists the FA Cup semi-finals will continue to be played at Wembley for the foreseeable future.
And he has pledged to investigate ways that will ensure a substantial "quota" of English-born players play for English teams, without breaking European employment law.
The Labour peer, 64, on his first public outing with the FA's come-and-meet roadshow project at Portsmouth also insists England must better nurture young talent if the international side's fortunes are to drastically improve.
Appearing on an FA panel at Fratton Park alongside head of football development Sir Trevor Brooking, England Under-21 manager Stuart Pearce, and Pompey's England goalkeeper David James, Lord Triesman pointed to the revived magic of the FA Cup which will allow the surprise quartet of semi-finalists to each have 33,000 of their fans - twice what could be offered at most other grounds - present on April 5 and 6.
He also admitted playing the semis at the new and so-very expensive Wembley was a fundamentally necessary part of the business plan for the stadium but added: "That's not the be-all and end-all of it.
"What I know is that the desire, particularly among clubs who don't get to Wembley that often, is for their fans to have the pleasure of an incredible day there.
"The hunger for not only their allocation, but also for more than their allocation, is evidence enough for me that people still want to go to the most iconic stadium in the world and support their team. In their position, so would I."
Lord Triesman insists the fate of the English game lies with a change of attitude towards developing youngsters.
He said: "I want success for England teams now but it to be not only getting success at the moment but in the long term.
"If we haven't a strong system for developing young players right from an early stage then you can still have a moment of success but that wouldn't satisfy me.
"There have been things which have changed in people's understanding over the past few months. For example, you can't coach and develop kids at the age of seven or eight in the way you do it at the age of 13, 14 or 15 any more than you try and teach them in a school in the same way.
"Ensuring young kids are getting sheer pleasure out of their football is something which has to be there. So we need in my view a change in our mindset. We have to value the earliest years and we have to be in it for the long haul.
"We must talk about what we will do over a period of 10 or 15 years without losing ambition for the English sides now."
Lord Triesman will also work to continue discussion on FIFA's controversial six-plus-five proposal for teams fielding foreign players which has upset managers like Arsenal's Arsene Wenger and Liverpool's Rafael Benitez.
"I have a very clear view that we need more players who are eligible for England in top-flight football," Lord Triesman said.
"What is difficult about the six-plus-five proposal is that it plainly flies in the face of European employment law and I will be pushing up the daisies before that law is changed.
"But it is very worthwhile trying to discover things, though, such as whether the basic regulations of competitions can be looked at without breaching employment law.
"I am not sure it can be done but I am prepared to turn up stones to see what is under them and what can be done.
"I can understand that people running Premier League clubs take the view that their coaching systems are excellent, and that they don't need help from anyone else.
"But it is also true that if they feel they are not getting the number of good young England eligible players coming through then their default position tends to be, 'can we pick them up from somewhere else in the world?'
"I think that we've got to to use all our efforts generally into encouraging England-eligible youngsters but also, in the context of the Football League, we are saying that actually we are putting the money in and want to influence it and get quality assurance."