From BBC. For many teams this will largely replace pre-season friendlies. Thoughts?

 

Scottish football will next season launch a revamped League Cup with a group stage and bonus-point system.

The Scottish Professional Football League will also reintroduce a two-week winter break in January.

The group stage will involve all 38 teams not involved in European competition, plus the winners of the Highland League and Lowland League.

"The new format marks an exciting new chapter for the competition," said SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster.

"It sees Scottish football leading the way with a number of innovations."

There will be eight groups of five teams playing each other once in a round-robin format, to take place across five July dates (16, 20, 23, 27 and 30) and will use the traditional three points for a win and one point for a draw model.

However, in what the SPFL believes will be a first in world football, all drawn matches will go straight to a penalty shoot-out, with the winner awarded a bonus point.

Eight group winners and the four best runners-up progress to the second round, when they are joined by the four clubs competing in Europe, and then revert to a traditional knockout format.

4 hours ago, DEANO96 said:

I seem to be one of very few that is glad to see a change! The league cup is another chance for a trophy and some excitement! The only thing I ever had against the competition was that you only had to win one game and you were in the quarterfinals...which is far to short!

having the group stage makes the competition far more interesting and more competitive! Plus a chance to see us play against one or two other teams! My only disappointment with it is all the group games being played before the season starts! Why not do the groups through September and October, move 2/3 league games and have the cup games as weekends to attract more punters and big up the competition! Yes it means league games being midweek but there's 38 league games a season, moving 2/3 to improve a major cup competition shouldn't be a problem! 

The regionalisation is a good idea as it would mean we likely play county, Elgin, highland league winner and either st Johnstone or Aberdeen! 

And for those who want to see a European place for the winner then keep dreaming cause there's no chance of that happening anytime soon! 

Bearing in mind that those in Europe are not in the group stage and the Prem teams not in Europe will all be in different groups how do you envisage the region? Lets say for arguements sake that the Euro places are taken up by Celtic, Aberdeen, St Johnstone and AN.Other from central belt. We now have Inverness and Ross County in two groups of five. We now need to find eight teams within the region. HL winner, Elgin, Peterhead, Montrose, Arbroath, Brechin, Forfar, Raith, East Fife and Dunfermline. Not exactly a region that'll reduce travel costs for teams and fans so will the fan numbers increase as is hoped?

8 minutes ago, Alex MacLeod said:

Bearing in mind that those in Europe are not in the group stage and the Prem teams not in Europe will all be in different groups how do you envisage the region? Lets say for arguements sake that the Euro places are taken up by Celtic, Aberdeen, St Johnstone and AN.Other from central belt. We now have Inverness and Ross County in two groups of five. We now need to find eight teams within the region. HL winner, Elgin, Peterhead, Montrose, Arbroath, Brechin, Forfar, Raith, East Fife and Dunfermline. Not exactly a region that'll reduce travel costs for teams and fans so will the fan numbers increase as is hoped?

And remember that in your scenario, the 2 Dundee clubs will be fishing in the Angus/Fife pool as well. Although if the Cup was won by a non-Premiership side, there would 1 unseeded top-flight club.

I think that what will be classed as regional will strain credulity.

Or they will play the 'where possible' card and put ICT, HL Winner, Stranraer, Berwick and Annan in the same group.

Edited December 10, 201510 yr by HawkeyeTheGnu

Deano I don't know if you can remember the last time group games were in operation but they attracted some of the lowest crowds EVER recorded in Scottish football even amongst the OF teams (they had good players then) who used to field reserve sides to give them some experience against older pros. They were glorified training sessions. If I am a manager with a small squad i would use these games to get the players match fit for the coming league season and avoid injuries if possible.

The novelty of summer football might give it a boost for a season or two but after that?

Also as many have noted if you have qualified for Europe who are you going to play against to get players up to speed I suppose Scottish clubs would have to play against foreign opposition for that purpose.

Either give it a European slot or scrap it entirely and add two teams to the league which would financially benefit all SPL clubs to a greater extent given the support attracted by Hibs and Rangers.There's a conservative extra 5,000 fans @£20 = £100,000.

 

There's little indication whether the groups will also be spread on 'ability' as well as geographically.
Another point not mentioned was the scenario of the winner of the Highland league or Lowland league securing a place in League Two - would the runner-up of the HL/LL take their place in the groups? Or would the deposed club return? And will there be an actual draw, or will clubs simply be assigned a group? Baffling....

Taking the current positions literally, Brora and Edinburgh City would be in the groups. Hypothetically, I'll give Hibs the play-off win against Motherwell.
My attempt at a geographical/ability balance! :

Hamilton	Ross County	Dundee	Inverness	Kilmarnock	Partick	Hibernian	Rangers
Motherwell	Forfar	Dundee United	Peterhead	Queen of South	Morton	Livingston	Dumbarton
Falkirk	Montrose	Raith	Brechin	Ayr	St Mirren	Stirling Albion	Alloa
Airdrie	East Fife	Dunfermline	Elgin	Stranraer	Queen's Park	Berwick	Stenhousemuir
Albion Rovers	Brora	Cowdenbeath	Arbroath	Annan	Clyde	Edinburgh City	East Stirlingshire

People have been crying out for summer football for years, and whist this isn't what is being asked for, it allows the attitude towards it to be tested.

I don't think for a moment that these games are going to be packing out stadiums across the country...and I suspect that the SPFL don't expect that either.  However, if there's a net gain on what the attendances at early rounds have shown for this tournament in the last few years, then great.....it also improves the case for a summer football season.

Yogi got it spot on with his comments to the media today when he said (paraphrasing)..."So what if it doesn't work, at least we're trying and if you never try things, then you can never move things forward."

Not bad Sneckboy. Can you now engineer for our home games to be against Arbroath and Brechin. We're more likely to take a bigger support to Hellgin and Balmoor.

Well done Sneckboy that gives us an idea of what it might be like, while it will not have the same pull as the Scottish Cup it is worth a try.

5 pots, with groups of 8 to get picked per group through all the leagues, did Barry Hearn have anything to do with this. 

8 Remaining Premiership.

Top 8 of Championship

Bottom 2Championship, top 6 of div1

Bottom 4 div1, top 4 of div2,

Bottom 6 div2, h league, l league.

With draw on BT sport.

You can't pick and choose nearest teams from all leagues but could loosely split each group in two, especially the bottom 2 pools.

This Cup has always seemed to be in the shadow of the Scottish cup.

The best 16 in the country go into a knock out comp. This will be harder to win than the Scottish cup but will still give all clubs a bash at it.

Should push up the Cup sponsorship value too.

I think the powers that be have done well thinking this one up and showing the courage to bring it to life.

 

Edited December 10, 201510 yr by 12th Man

To me, just as important as revamping the format, is to compress the tournament so the final is in October as it used to be. Maybe County etc are excited about having a semi in January to look forward to but I would imagine fans outside of the last four have just lost interest.

Often teams have bought/sold/loaned players so the teams that got their club to that stage are no longer recognisable and also the impetus is lost. That's much of the appeal of short snappy tournaments like the Euros or the World Cup.

It's a shame those in the European competitions aren't to be in at the group stages.  It reduces the opportunities of the wee clubs to play a relatively lucrative game against a big club and it increases the chances of the usual suspects getting to the more lucrative stages of the competition.  In addition, it denies poor Celtic the opportunity of actually progressing from a group stage!

9 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

It's a shame those in the European competitions aren't to be in at the group stages.  It reduces the opportunities of the wee clubs to play a relatively lucrative game against a big club and it increases the chances of the usual suspects getting to the more lucrative stages of the competition.  In addition, it denies poor Celtic the opportunity of actually progressing from a group stage!

I can recall playing against SPL clubs in testimonials and also the top flight teams we played against in Cup comps in the early days, at the time I felt they were all big clubs and it really was an achievement beating the likes of Killy, Motherwell, Hearts to name a few.

Pity about Celtic not reaching the group stage maybe they would have more continental success on Eurovision.

 

Sneckboy may well have hit the nail on the head with the proverbial hammer. That group is better than the usual pre season bore. 

Only trouble is you can't pick and choose the clubs u want to play. 

Who do you play the following season

Don't get too technical 12th Man the SFA  Committee will have to think.  

Now there's a contradiction a thinking  SFA Committee, what next. It's a good point 12th man but you might be accused of thinking long term and that wouldn't do. No no no get with the programme, you are supposed to be enthused with this clever short term fix for this dead as a Doh Doh tournament. We should rename it after it's TV counterpart, pointless. The SFA and the clubs know it's only there to provide what revenue can be got from the public or am I being too cynical?. Strangely enough if it turns into a financial pup it could be the driver to either reinstate the European spot or enlarge the league and that, (in my opinion) would be a result for Scottish Football..

 

Not sure that the SFA need tothink about anything. Its the SPFL who run this competition