The British League Cup

So, the Scottish Premier League is looking at moving forward with plans to revamp the league structure. Such as moving from a 12 team league, to 10. Purpose being to improve competitiveness, as well as allowing the league to bring back a winters break. Other goals of their plan is to boost the Scottish leagues co-efficient, and to raise Scotland's FIFA ranking from its current 66, to 15 within 5 years.

However, there is one thing that came through that was something of a surprise. The resurrection of an idea to unify the various League Cup's to form a "British League Cup."

However, the Scots are going to have to go some to convince England it is in England's best interests to do so. Whilst in principle, it sounds good, there are many, many hurdles to overcome.

At what level will this competition be unified? for it to be a true British Cup, then the trophies need to be unified from the ground up. Problem is, this then leaves us with a certain degree of inequity. The English League Cup is designated for the Football League, in other words, covering the English  league structure, from Division 2, to the Championship, into the Premier League. This covers all 92 pro clubs. The Scottish league has 42 pro clubs in its league structure. 

This is where we hit a snag. How do you marry up the clubs? If you start from the bottom, then you run the risk of having the vast majority of the Scottish clubs eliminated before you get anywhere near the final. Also, if you allow the Scottish clubs to join in later, then you get the problem of lower standard clubs going up against stronger English clubs.

This is not only to mention the fact that a lot of these games are played mid-week. and in the early stages of the competition, you will end up with a potential tie with Plymouth Argyle having to travel all the way from the south west of England to Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Which is one of the furthest north Scottish league clubs! Such a journey will be enormously expensive, and one the fans wont want to make!

Then of course, there is the finances involved. The English cup draws a lot in sponsorship, whilst  its Scottish cousin is something of the poor relation. Whilst the addition of the English clubs would see a large boost in terms of finance to Scottish clubs due to increased value, for the English clubs, the increase will probably be tiny in comparison.

Then, of course, where is the final played? I suppose one idea would be to alternate between Hampden Park, and Wembley. Problem here is that the FA needs Wembley to be kept busy to pay for its massive bill! So they may not want to lose one of their Cup competitions!

Yet another issue to be worked out, is access to European competition. As it stands, the League Cup in England also comes with a space in the Europa Cup, whilst its Scottish cousin does not offer a slot in Europe. Will the English leagues be expected to give up their slot for a British trophy? And run the risk of not qualifying for Europe? Scotland will not be guaranteed a space, but the fact is that they have ACCESS to more slots than they should, whilst the English potentially lose one.

So, what to do? Well, another option would be to leave the competitions alone, but place a British trophy on top. Only problem is, whilst this would allow someone to be crowned as the British champions, it is another game in an already congested fixture list. And with the English league being that much stronger than the Scottish, will the English feel the need to agree?

For me, it would be great to see. 

However, the Scots are going to have to go some to convince their English counterparts that England will see big benefits from this!