Idea to revitalise the cups

League Cup: Premier League teams no longer compete. Just Championship to L2 (or possibly involve the National League). Winners get a UEFA Conference League spot.

FA Cup: teams can only make 3 unenforced changes from the previous league game. Winners get a Champions League place.

In a nutshell, I have hugely alleviated fixture congestion for the top clubs, and have made it so both competitions are well worth taking seriously for all clubs involved.

Too simple?

 

Sounds reasonable to me. Just a few bits to iron out if the FA Cup winner and runner up finishes top 3 already, but I’ll go for it.

 

Too sensible. The Premier League and their precious big six clubs would never, ever go for rewarding sporting achievement over spending power.

 

Not enough money for the gravy train teams

 

League Cup shouldn't get a European place if it's only for Championship and below. A Champion's League place for the FA Cup winners would see teams taking it seriously.

 

No chance a European spot would ever be up for grabs without Premier League teams competing. It’d affect co-efficient rankings when the likes of Sunderland get 0 points in the group stages.

 

Exactly, same reason the champions league place would not be reallocated too.

 

Upon their relegation to league one a few seasons ago, a Wednesday fan called radio Sheffield. His suggestion was that the winners of the Papa John's Trophy should receive a Europa League place. He said there were enough Wednesday fans to campaign for it to happen. He wasn't joking.

 

Great idea but not a cat in hells chance the established elite would go with a chance that anybody else but them could get champions league place.

 

League cup would become a glorified Papa Johns, with a place in Europe that would seemingly be awarded in spite of clubs in the league above - why? Champ and even Leagues 1&2 clubs already put out weakened teams, so that argument can't be used against prem teams.

As for the FA Cup winner getting a Champions League place, this seems inappropriate to me. If you do that, then you need to apply the same rule to all the winners of domestic cups from the major leagues across Europe. The Champions League should be for the champions of each top division across Europe; it has already lost a lot of credibility in that sense, is overinflated, and this method of including domestic cup winners would imo be farcical.

A no from me.

Ps the only change to cups I would make is to remove Prem youth teams from the Papa Johns cup, this is a very poor decision (to include them).

 

Am ok, except for enforced changes. Instead just make all teams name a 20 man squad for FA Cup

 

Go back to the Rochdale days. I dunno why that was scrapped after one season. Playing the league Cup first round the Saturday before the season stars gives you a competitive match before your first league match, frees up a midweek, and saves on things like floodlights being on, and you get a better crowd.

 

Are they ever ? Lol

 

I'm sure years ago to balance out the fact that teams got "byes" in JPT due to numbers they included top 16 National League teams to get to 64 and a straight knock out. Much better idea to bring that back? Who wants 3 group matches?

 

Controversial opinion - the league cup is fine as it is.

It is almost universally used as an opportunity to blood fringe and young players into competitive football, preparing them for the occasions in which they will no doubt be required to step in for league games later in the season.

I’m not of the oldest vintage on here, I was born early eighties, can remember watching games from the late eighties but realistically have been an avid watcher and supporter of the game since the early nineties.

At that time, the fa cup was still huge - the league cup even then was pretty secondary in people’s thoughts, but still generally had first teams competing.

Thirty ish years on from there, it’s pretty clear that the fa cup has lost a hell of a lot of what it was, cup final Saturday used to be huge - the attitude towards the fa cup now might be on par with how the league cup was seen then.

The league cup though has in recent years morphed into a development tournament really. That’s sad in its own way - it’s only taken seriously by most from the point they reach the quarter finals and even then not much - but instead of pining for it to mean more, like in the past, I just accept it for what it is, it isn’t going to go back to how it was, neither is the fa cup - there is a huge amount more prestige in finishing fourth in the premier league than there is winning the cup - in fact there’s more prestige finishing sixth.

It used to be that people could remember who’d won the cup every year better than who’d won the league. No more, though I’d have a decent idea who’s won the cup in recent years. I haven’t the first idea who’s won the last ten league cups to be honest.

Using the tournament to give starts to people like Shepherd, Winfield and Chapman, to give game time to Yoganathan and so on, where some might see it as not taking the tournament seriously, I see it as taking the development of those lads seriously and giving them an opportunity.

 

Others have pointed out why the European place would be a non-starter. However, take the same basic premise you've outlined and guarantee the winner a place in the Championship play-off semi-finals (regardless of division) and it would become very relevant to the EFL teams. Perhaps re-vamp the play-offs to a Conference style structure to accommodate this so that there are still 4 places available from league position.

 

Great idea!

 

There used to be weekly opportunities to blood youngsters into proper men's football. It was called the reserves.

 

Get rid of the under 23's League and bring back the Football Combination.