League cup

[Scouse Hibee]

Talk about complicating a simple cup competition.

[BroxburnHibee]

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And this is a quote from the article:

The current Scottish League Cup format involves six rounds; the new format, scheduled to kick off on Saturday 16 July, 2015, involves four rounds plus the new group stage

That's right, new format starts six months ago. I never even noticed.

It also says one of the rounds to be played on the 23th

[Sir David Gray]

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

And launched on a Monday night. At 10pm.

Mind-boggling, amateur, shambles of an organisation.

If only they were that good.

[erin go bragh]

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Can't post link but spfl just announced the change to the cup. 8 groups of 5 playing each other once. Penalty shoot outs for bonus point after a draw.

Guess club will have to amend cup top now.

Winners of this seasons Scottish cup won't play in the group stage :• wink

GGTTH

[GreenCastle]

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

And launched on a Monday night. At 10pm.

Mind-boggling, amateur, shambles of an organisation.

When I first read it I thought it was a joke article.

Why would they release it at such an odd time?

Format wise...teams may use it for pre-season or have to start earlier which means quite a few games in a few days - potential risk of injury with little recovery time.

Also curious how this change came about ? Clubs must have voted ?

Hopefully they will change the league structure as that's what really needs fixed!

[Halifaxhibby]

Utter pash!, back of a fag packet material. The bigot brothers will greet about it as they usually have lucrative pre seasons lined up. No excuse from anyone in europe though cant say they won't be competitively up to speed. Mind you players will be put off signing for teams in scotland. Your average player nowadays needs 2 months holiday a year after 1 to 2 games a week over 10 months!!!!!

[California-Hibs]

I actually think it's a really good change. Good that we'll now see some competitive games in July. A derby in the sunshine wouldn't go a miss either. Like how they've scrapped extra time and it's straight to penalties.

More money also. I welcome this change and think It might just actually be a success.

[Moulin Yarns]

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Can only assume it will be regionalised, but that'll get a bit repetitive after a year or two. Also rules out any lucrative pre-season friendlies, though I suppose it's been a while since we've had one of those, and it should provide good preparation for the league campaign.

First few games will be particularly sluggish as well unless clubs start pre-season training in early-mid June.

With a guaranteed number of home games, it will be interesting to see how this is packaged in terms of season tickets and CTU's. Do you include all group games in the season ticket, or just run it as previous CTU systems and risk particularly low crowds? Would including it in season tickets mean that families are less likely to buy, given the season tickets would start before the schools even break up for summer?

In Scotland, schools are off during July and first half of August. It is only in England that the schools are on holiday later.

[Thecat23]

Think it's a good idea, also happy with the winter break!

[jodjam]

We need change but this will affect crowds. With only one going through and half the runners up this will create a lot of dead games in the last round of fixtures.

[Aritch]

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I'm assuming this is a precursor to an expanded top flight switching to 2 matches per season against each team, with this League Cup, if regionalised, chucks in extra derbies as a compensatory effort to the clubs?

Pretty strange time of night to put a PR announcement mind. Having a sponsor for it would have helped too!

That's my take on it too. This has always been one of the quoted stipulations in switching to a 16/18 team league playing twice a season.

[Mark79]

Is this the best they can come up with? Sounds like BT had a gap in July needed filled so along come Scottish football with some "it's a knockout" style cup.

Usual nonsense from spfl, selling us out for next to hee haw.laughing stock of British football.

[Pretty Boy]

It's an idea with a bit potential that has been totally 'Scottish footballed' in it's execution.

One of the wort things in Scottish football at the moment is seeing the same teams 4 times a season, it even dilutes the derby imo. Now we will potentially see the same team 5 times a season, whoopee. I just can't see crowds flocking to see 4 games in 2 weeks when the early stages of the league cup already struggle to attract decent crowds (I know that's not been the case at ER this season but more generally speaking).

Now had this been used as a chance to expand the top league to 16 teams and use a group format to make up the shortfall in fixtures, move the final back to November like it used to be to makke this an early season competition rather than drag it on for months and suck any buzz out of it, introduce set ticket prices of no more than £10 an adult and £3 a child to really trial lower pricing and maybe even allow a ticket stub, along with whetever price was set, to be exchanged for a (plastic) bottle of beer (a cold beer at the football on July sounds good to me) and maybe a rule that each squad of 18 had to include 5 or 6 under 20s in the group stages as well then I could almost see the point.

[DarrenSQH]

It sounds terrible and makes Scottish football out to be even more of a joke than it already is.

Bonus points after penalty shoot outs. What were they thinking

[Pretty Boy]

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Utter pash!, back of a fag packet material. The bigot brothers will greet about it as they usually have lucrative pre seasons lined up. No excuse from anyone in europe though cant say they won't be competitively up to speed. Mind you players will be put off signing for teams in scotland. Your average player nowadays needs 2 months holiday a year after 1 to 2 games a week over 10 months!!!!!

Teams that qualify for Europe skip the group stages.

[Waxy]

Ruining a good tournament. Keep it as it is ya donuts.

[Waxy]

I'd do some sort of anglo Scottish cup in July instead.

[Moulin Yarns]

We could ask Texaco to sponsor it

[NAE NOOKIE]

Not sure about this, it has a touch of 'back to the future' about it. It does throw up the prospect of a derby with Edinburgh City or Spartans I suppose. Its a bit annoying that a pre season friendly down south will be pretty well out of the question now, which personally I always look forward to.

The SPFL are a bit wide of the mark saying this answers a call for competitive summer football. The call from a lot of fans was for a change to the league to play through the summer, or at least giving it a go, not to re jig the league cup to have clubs start competitive football two weeks earlier. Typical of the blazers though, the engine needs looked at so they buy a magic tree.

As for the winter break, its an utter waste of time in Scotland. The two weeks set aside could be fine and the weeks either side terrible, all they are doing is increasing the risk of a fixture pile up.

[The_Exile]

I was all for this idea IF the league was reconstructed, looks like it isn't, so now we play a team 4 times a year in the league, potentially once in the group stages of the league cup and I take it there's also a chance you meet them in the knockout if both of you get through, then potential to meet them in the Scottish cup, plus if there's replays needed in the knockout rounds how many times is that you could meet the same team in one year? 7? 8? Madness.

[snedzuk]

on the up side, Hibernian - in another first - will be the only side to win the league cup successively in two formats....

[rabcp1]

I'm all for this it'll be nice to get some competitive games in July and will guarantee every club at least 2 Home games in the cup which will be a god send for clubs in league 1,2 and the two clubs from the Highland/Lower league. If this is a success it may trigger more league reconstruction or the possibility of proper summer football, its also worth noting that this new format has doubled the TV deal for the league cup too!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...ak-season.html

[LancashireHibby]

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In Scotland, schools are off during July and first half of August. It is only in England that the schools are on holiday later.

Ok then, they start smack bang in the middle of the school holidays. Reinforces my point even more if anything as many family will be missing a game or two before the league starts.

[--------]

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I was all for this idea IF the league was reconstructed, looks like it isn't, so now we play a team 4 times a year in the league, potentially once in the group stages of the league cup and I take it there's also a chance you meet them in the knockout if both of you get through, then potential to meet them in the Scottish cup, plus if there's replays needed in the knockout rounds how many times is that you could meet the same team in one year? 7? 8? Madness.

Don't the knock-out rounds go to extra time and penalties? I'm just asking - the article on the BBC website says "traditional knockout format" but doesn't go into details.

But I agree with you - this means Hibs could meet a team 7 times in the one season.

And we play four section matches just to reach the last 16? Without involving the four best trams from the previous season. Cannae wait!

[danhibees1875]

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It's an idea with a bit potential that has been totally 'Scottish footballed' in it's execution.

One of the wort things in Scottish football at the moment is seeing the same teams 4 times a season, it even dilutes the derby imo. Now we will potentially see the same team 5 times a season, whoopee. I just can't see crowds flocking to see 4 games in 2 weeks when the early stages of the league cup already struggle to attract decent crowds (I know that's not been the case at ER this season but more generally speaking).

Now had this been used as a chance to expand the top league to 16 teams and use a group format to make up the shortfall in fixtures, move the final back to November like it used to be to makke this an early season competition rather than drag it on for months and suck any buzz out of it, introduce set ticket prices of no more than £10 an adult and £3 a child to really trial lower pricing and maybe even allow a ticket stub, along with whetever price was set, to be exchanged for a (plastic) bottle of beer (a cold beer at the football on July sounds good to me) and maybe a rule that each squad of 18 had to include 5 or 6 under 20s in the group stages as well then I could almost see the point.

I quite like the idea generally and think it's a good starting point, I also have no issue with the timing of the release tbh.

The ideas highlighted above would be brilliant! But unfortunately, all seems very unlikely at the moment. With the exception of a 16 team league; which I think will happen sooner rather than later (preferably 2 of them, with a regionalised pyramid system underneath them).

Does anyone know if the League cup groups are seeded or regionalised at all?

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I was all for this idea IF the league was reconstructed, looks like it isn't, so now we play a team 4 times a year in the league, potentially once in the group stages of the league cup and I take it there's also a chance you meet them in the knockout if both of you get through, then potential to meet them in the Scottish cup, plus if there's replays needed in the knockout rounds how many times is that you could meet the same team in one year? 7? 8? Madness.

If they were Championship or below, they could meet in the Petrofac and Play-offs also.

League x 4
Play-offs x 2
League cup x2
SC + Replay = 2
Petrofac = 1

If, one of the teams had just been relegated from the premiership with exemplary discipline and Scotland had won the fair play award for an extra European place and the other team had won the Scottish Cup in the previous year; they could conceivably meet in the European Cup group stages and play another twice. I guess they could also arrange a friendly for pre-season.

14 I guess?

[rabcp1]

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Does anyone know if the League cup groups are seeded or regionalised at all?

The groups will be ‘loosely regionalised’

[BH Hibs]

Another case of ****ing up a decent idea. It's a clear now as ever there'won't be any proper league reconstruction as all they are caring about and praying for is the return of four bigot bashes asap.

[PatHead]

Hopefully it is the start of league re-construction with the ultimate aim being summer football. This will have to happen for the Qatar World Cup anyway as there will be an enforced shutdown to allow the tournament to take place.

Once summer football is in place for this tournament they can sneak the start of the league season in amongst it and hey presto we have summer football with a winter shutdown! Sky/BT have something to televise over the summer as well.

I really hope they increase the leagues to 18 with us only meeting twice as well. It is boring seeing the same teams again and again.

I also suspect it will be the end of the Petrofac Cup.

[ballengeich]

I like the idea of a bonus point for the penalty shoot-out as it means every game has three points to play for instead of draws only having a total of two.

However, the SPFL is incorrect in thinking it's a world first. The Stirlingshire cup used the format for a couple of seasons about a decade ago.

[rabcp1]

"If you look at Denmark they are currently bringing in a 14-team league from what was a 12-team league previously. Innovation in league football always continues all around the world and we're no exception."

I wonder if this is a hint from Doncaster (taken from here http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/35037580) Hopefully theirs some form of league reconstruction in the works