 | |
| Founded | 1946 |
|---|---|
| Region | Scotland |
| Teams | 45 |
| Current champions | Celtic (22nd title) |
| Most championships | Rangers (28 titles) |
| Broadcaster | Premier Sports |
 2025–26 Scottish League Cup | |
TheScottish League Cup, also known as thePremier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons, is afootball competition open to allScottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in1946–47, it is the oldest nationalLeague cup in existence. The competition had a straight knockout format but became a group and knockout competition from2016–17.
Rangers are the record holders of the cup, winning 28 times.Celtic are the current holders, winning their 22nd title after beatingRangers 3–3 (5-4 pen.) atHampden Park on15 December 2024.
The domestic television rights are held byPremier Sports who replacedBT Sport from the2019–20 season.
Historically, the Scottish League Cup has oscillated between being a straightforward single-elimination knockout tournament and having an initial group phase. Since the2016–17 season, the League Cup has used a group phase format. The format has eight groups of five teams playing each other once in a round-robin format.[1] 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.[1][note 1] In the group phase, three points are given for a win and one point for a draw. If matches are level after ninety minutes, apenalty shoot-out is held with the winning team gaining a bonus point.[1][2] 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 three best runners-up progress into the second round, where they are joined by the five clubs participating in UEFA competitions.[1] 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 atHampden Park in Glasgow, though due to renovations some finals have been played at other venues, such asCeltic Park orIbrox Stadium. 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 asBT Sport took over rights fromBBC Scotland.[2] In February 2016 the SPFL announced the League Cup final would be moved to November.[1][3]
The cup has its origins in a regional cup competition called theSouthern League Cup which was introduced in 1940 when wartime restrictions led to a suspension of theScottish Cup. This tournament did not involve all of the teams who comprised theScottish Football League prior to the outbreak of war, although its last, expanded edition after the conflict ended was well-attended, demonstrating enthusiasm amongst supporters for the continuation of such a tournament. The first official Scottish Football League Cup was contested during the1946–47 season, whenRangers defeatedAberdeen in the final.[4]
The competition was very popular with supporters during the first few decades of its existence. The tournament consisted of 8 or 9 groups consisting of 4 or 5 teams. The groups were seeded into two sets with the top 16 teams in Division One making up the first four groups, guaranteeing that four 'big' teams would play four 'lesser' teams in the quarter-finals. From1949–50 to1998–99 the final was played prior to thefestive season which provided the excitement of an early trophy on offer, except in1968–69 (postponed due to a fire at Hampden),1977–78,1978–79 and1983–84 (an experimental season with a group stage in the third round followed by the semi-finals).
Extra league fixtures after theScottish Premier Division was formed in 1975 and expanding European competitions meant that by the early 1980s the League Cup's long-winded format, which involved group rounds played early in the season leading to two-legged knock-out rounds, attracted much criticism. From1984–85 the tournament was revamped to a shorter, single elimination knock-out format. From that period Rangers became the dominant force in the competition having previously been roughly level withCeltic in terms of trophies, winning nine times in twelve years to increase their total to 20 before Celtic won their tenth in1997–98.
During the1999–2000 competition, the semi-finals and final were moved to the springtime to avoid the congestion of fixtures caused by the early rounds of the UEFA club competitions and Scotland's representatives in Europe were given automatic byes until the third round of competition. For the2016–17 season a pre-Christmas schedule was again adopted, although delayed springtime finals were played in2020–21 (due to disruption caused by theCOVID-19 pandemic) and2022–23 (due to changes to accommodate the2022 FIFA World Cup, albeit Scotland were not involved in that tournament).
From the 2016–17 edition the League Cup reverted to an early-season group stage format exempting the Scottish representatives in Europe, with single-elimination knock-out in the last 16 onwards.[2] Due to the strength of those exempt teams – particularly Celtic who won seven of the first nine editions in the format, although their total of 22 was still some way behind Rangers' 28 – it has been rare for a club who qualified from the group stage to reach the final, with only two beaten finalists (Motherwell in2017–18 andLivingston in 2020–21) doing so, andSt Johnstone in the latter tournament the only winners.
The League Cup has been known by different names due to sponsorship:[5]
| Period | Sponsor | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 1946–1978 | No sponsor | Scottish League Cup |
| 1979–1981 | Bell's whisky | Bell's League Cup |
| 1981–1984 | No sponsor | Scottish League Cup |
| 1984–1992 | Skol Lager | Skol Cup |
| 1992–1994 | No sponsor | Scottish League Cup |
| 1994–1998 | Coca-Cola | Coca-Cola Cup |
| 1998–1999 | No sponsor | Scottish League Cup |
| 1999–2008 | CIS Insurance | CIS Insurance Cup[6][7] |
| 2008–2011 | The Co-operative Insurance | Co-operative Insurance Cup |
| 2011–2013 | Scottish Government | Scottish Communities League Cup[8][9] |
| 2013–2015 | No sponsor | Scottish League Cup |
| 2015 | QTS Group | The Scottish League Cup presented by QTS (semi-finals and final only)[10] |
| 2015–2016 | Utilita Energy | The Scottish League Cup presented by Utilita[11][12] |
| 2016–2021 | Betfred | Betfred Cup[13][14] |
| 2021–2022 | Premier Sports | Premier Sports Cup[15][16][17] |
| 2022–2024 | Viaplay | Viaplay Cup[17] |
| 2024–present | Premier Sports | Premier Sports Cup[18] |
Before the competition's official inception, the Scottish Football League awarded the Southern League Cup winners a trophy that had been borrowed from the Scottish Football Association. In the summer of 1946, the Scottish FA asked for the return of that trophy, which became theVictory Cup.
This left the Scottish Football League without a cup for their new tournament. On 15 January 1947, long-term Clyde, and thenScottish Football League, chairman John McMahon donated the three-handled trophy that is still used to this day.[19][20]
During the 1980s when Skol lager sponsored the competition, a second trophy known as the Skol Cup was also awarded. After the1987–88 competition whenRangers won their third Skol Cup, they were given the trophy permanently and a new Skol Cup with a slightly different design was introduced the following season.
Until 1995, the winners of the Scottish League Cup were granted a place in theUEFA Cup, although this privilege was rarely invoked as the winning teams usually qualified for Europe by some other means, such as winning the League Championship or Scottish Cup. The final example of this wasRaith Rovers who represented Scotland in the1995–96 UEFA Cup after winning the League Cup the previous season as aFirst Division club. Since this privilege has been discontinued, some winners have missed out on European football qualification the following season, including2015–16 winnersRoss County who have still never qualified for European football in their history. AdditionallyRoss County andEast Fife are the only League Cup winners to have never played in aUEFA club competition.
Scottish League Cup matches are shown live byPremier Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[17][2][16][22] In Australia, the Scottish League Cup is broadcast bybeIN Sports. The2009 Scottish League Cup Final was shown live onSBS due to a fixture clash on previous hosts' Setanta channel.[2] In sub-Saharan Africa, the Scottish League Cup matches are shown live byESPN
 |
| Period | Channel |
|---|---|
| 2002–04 | Five[23] |
| 2004–16 | BBC One Scotland[24] |
| 2016–20 | BT Sport[25] |
| 2020–22 | Premier Sports[17][26][27] |
| 2022–24 | Viaplay[17] |
| 2024–present | Premier Sports[18] |
