Carabao Cup winner will soon qualify for Europa Conference League, the new third tier European competition, in huge blow to tournament – The Sun

THE League Cup has been dealt a hammer blow by Uefa after it was announced future winners will only qualify for Europe’s new third-tier competition.

Uefa have confirmed the Europa Conference League will start from 2021.

Each of the “Big Five” leagues will have one place in the new competition, compared with up to four in the Champions League and two in the Europa League.

The FA Cup winners are guaranteed a Europa League slot, as are the side finishing fifth in the Prem.

That slot goes down to the sixth-placed club if a top four side wins the FA Cup – as has happened regularly over the past decade.

But it means the Carabao Cup winners from next season onwards will only earn a place among the Euro minnows, rather than starting the campaign with a chance to earn a Champions league place through winning the Europa League.

Should the Carabao winners finish in the top four, then it could see the seventh-placed team going into the lowest of the three competitions, which would have been Wolves this season.

LEAGUE CUP UNDER THREAT

While Uefa are keen to widen up the chances of teams from smaller nations tasting competitive European football, the knock-on effects could be huge for the League Cup.

SunSport revealed how the Prem giants were putting the future of the League Cup – and its financial importance to the EFL clubs – as a major reason for not supporting the planned overhaul of club competitions being poushed by the European Clubs Association.

The Prem sides argued that expanding the Champions League would mean them having to sacrifice the League Cup or play youth teams, damaging its prospects of the sponsorship deals that make it viable.

But if there is no perceived up-side to winning the competition and only a downside in terms of being asked to play in a European tournament that would be likely to COST the Prem clubs money, there will be even less reason to take the Carabao Cup seriously.

That, in turn, makes it harder for the Premier League to use its League Cup argument when the ECA comes back with its new proposals for change next year.

France last week announced that its version of the League Cup would not be played after this season, leaving England the only one of the five major leagues with a second domestic cup competition.

But if the prize for winning is now something of a booby prize, the entire future of the League Cup is under question.

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