It's not cheating. It's just a manipulation of the draw that you can't compare to the real world. There is not a draw based on the quality of your players in the real world.
How would it ever be logical to get rid of all your good players (who perform) and replace them all with terrible players and then after the draw fire/sell all those again and get good players again of the same quality of the first batch you got rid of?
It works that way in this game and it earns you an easy cup draw which is fine. But it's certainly not gonna earn you the respect of anyone else when they know that every trophy in your cabinet was won against opponents a whole bunch of levels below you.