Scottish Communities League Cup
| Founded | 1946 |
|---|---|
| Region | Scotland |
| Number of teams | 44 |
| Current champions | Celtic (17th title) |
| Most successful team(s) |
Rangers (27 titles) |
| Television broadcasters | BT Sport |
 2017–18 Scottish League Cup
|
|
The Scottish League Cup, currently known as the Betfred Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. The competition had a straight knockout format but became a group and knockout competition from 2016–17.
Rangers are the record holders of the cup, winning 27 times. Celtic are the current holders, after beating Motherwell 2–0 at Hampden Park on 26 November 2017.
Currently, the domestic television rights are held by BT Sport who replaced BBC Scotland from the 2016–17 edition.
Historically, the Scottish League Cup has oscillated between being a straightforward single-elimination knockout tournament and having an initial group phase. Since the 2016–17 season, the League Cup has used a group phase format. The current format has eight groups of five teams playing each other once in a round-robin format. The forty teams playing in the group stage consist of the 38 league clubs who are not participating in UEFA competitions, along with two teams from outside the league. In the group phase, three points are given for a win and one point for a draw. If matches are level after ninety minutes, a penalty shoot-out is held with the winning team gaining a bonus point. The groups are regionalised: there are four groups in the North section, and four in the South section, with three pots for each regional section – top seeds, second seeds, and unseeded clubs. Each group will consist of one top seed, one second seed, and three unseeded clubs.
The eight group winners and four best runners-up progress into the second round, where they are joined by the four clubs participating in UEFA competitions. The tournament then adopts a single-elimination knockout format. There are no replays, which means all drawn matches are decided by extra time and a penalty shootout, if necessary. The semi-final matches are played on a neutral ground, determined by the location and size of supports involved. The final game is traditionally played at Hampden Park in Glasgow, though due to renovations some finals have been played at other venues, such as Celtic Park or Ibrox. The new format also allowed the SPFL to reintroduce the two-weekend winter break in January. Along with the newly designed tournament, a new television deal for it was announced as BT Sport took over rights from BBC Scotland. In February 2016 the SPFL announced the League Cup final would be moved to November.
...
Wikipedia