The Carling Cup

With a lot of premiership teams not really wanting to play in this competition surely its about time the Football League made the competition only for football league clubs including the Conference.

The league cup is under rated by most premiership supporting fans. In turn should it then be capped with a European place (UEFA Cup) for the winners.

After all any Football League team would love the chance of a Wembley Final and a crack in Europe, and would create welcome revenues for the Conference teams as well.

Bring back the ZDS too, I say.

I agree, or make the home team the team that is lowest team out of the two drawn together. Good for crowds and a few more upsets.

Of the two drawn together the team of a lower division is the home team, if they are from the same division then the team with the lower finishing position of last season is the home team. The promoted teams assuming the positions of the relegated teams for the purposes of determining last seasons finishing positions.

I think a Cup for the lower leagues is a good idea but you can't attach a European place to it. The teams below the big four only have one place to divide in the UEFA Cup when the FA Cup finalists and Carling Cup finalists (or is it only the winners that qualify in the Carling Cup?) are not in the top 4. It would give the teams something else to play for and a trip to Wembley is financially interesting as well.

1) If it were football league cups including the conference then it wouldn't be a "League Cup"

2) There is already a cup comp for League 1 and League 2 cups = Johnstone's Paint Trophy

3) There are cup comps for Conference clubs = Sentana Shield and the FA Trophy

4) I'm not sure if the league cup has ever been won by a team not in the top flight. If they did it was a long time ago. So the Premiership teams do take it seriously once they start to progress.

5) The revenue small teams get from playing against Premiership teams is vital in some cases and gives the fans something to look forward to

I think a Cup for the lower leagues is a good idea but you can't attach a European place to it. The teams below the big four only have one place to divide in the UEFA Cup when the FA Cup finalists and Carling Cup finalists (or is it only the winners that qualify in the Carling Cup?) are not in the top 4. It would give the teams something else to play for and a trip to Wembley is financially interesting as well.

It's only the winners of both Carling and FA cups who go into the UEFA cup. It's just that it was only last season that none of the big four actually made it to the FA cup final. In previous years (well, since 1995) the winners already had a Champions' League place, so the runners-up got the UEFA cup place.

I'd agree with your post - the Premiership isn't part of the Football League, so why do its teams get to participate in a cup originally intended for League members only? But if Premiership clubs weren't in it, I can't see there'd be a European place for the winners. And many Premiership teams do take it seriously, especially those who have little or no chance of European qualification otherwise.

I agree, or make the home team the team that is lowest team out of the two drawn together. Good for crowds and a few more upsets.

 

Of the two drawn together the team of a lower division is the home team, if they are from the same division then the team with the lower finishing position of last season is the home team. The promoted teams assuming the positions of the relegated teams for the purposes of determining last seasons finishing positions.

What if two teams in the same league were drawn together? Team A might be higher at the time of the draw, but team B could well overtake them sometime between then and the fixture.