The English football calendar may be set to receive sweeping changes to the competition landscape starting in 2024 as Premier League clubs look to revamp both the FA Cup and League Cup formats as reported by The Times.
Excl: Premier League clubs consider plans to scrap FA Cup replays and revamp League Cuphttps://t.co/Ie6QjCXGS0
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) September 19, 2022
As mentioned by Martyn Ziegler, “The calendar proposals from 2024 would scrap third and fourth-round FA Cup replays entirely, sources with knowledge of the plan have told The Times, although the FA would have to agree to this. Clubs involved in European competitions would either not compete in the League Cup or would field under-21 sides.
The Premier League wants to free up space in the congested fixture calendar but it is understood that the top-flight clubs will not push for the League Cup to be scrapped, nor for all FA Cup games to be played in midweek.
The EFL has yet to be approached over the plan but it would welcome talks on the future of the League Cup — called the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons – and FA Cup replays. Sources say that EFL clubs may also be happy to scrap replays, because lower-league sides may have a greater chance of beating top-flight opposition on penalties if the scores are level.”
This comes on the back of the Premier League being warned by the government that the top flight of English football is required to provide “hundreds of millions of pounds” to the lower tiers of the English football ladder or else they could face legislative proceedings.
As such, the EFL has named its desired figure of £250m to help the lower levels of the football tier in all respects, with Ziegler adding “As previously reported, the New Deal would allocate funding to clubs in the Sky Bet Championship on a sliding scale of funding based on where they finish in the table, similar to the merit payments in the Premier League.”
