Carabao Cup reform plans set to greatly impact Newcastle United, Leeds, Aston Villa & co

Proposed Carabao Cup reforms would see a ‘seeding mechanism’ introduced next season in order to ease fixture congestion for those teams competing in the Champions League and Europa League. As reported by the Telegraph, this ‘seeding mechanism’ will ensure no teams competing in either of those competitions will draw each other.

Newcastle United missed out on European football altogether and thus will not only benefit from these proposed changes, but may even suffer because of them. With Champions League and Europa League teams being unable to be drawn against each other, it increases the likelihood that Newcastle, or any other non-Europe competing club, could be drawn against one of those six teams.

These Carabao Cup changes come about because of the reformatted European competitions that will see clubs play eight league stage games before the knockout rounds, two more than the traditional group stage that has been in place over the last decade or so. As tradition, clubs competing in Europe will still only enter the Carabao Cup at the third round stage.

Newcastle United, meanwhile, will enter the competition in the second round with the third round set to take place over two weeks - once again aimed at reducing fixture congestion. If these reforms were implemented last season, the Magpies would not have been able to draw Manchester City in the third round. Although they would go on to win that game, it was just the beginning of an unprecedented run of cup draws that saw them placed in a Champions League ‘group of death’ whilst also facing Manchester United, Chelsea, Sunderland and the Citizens again in domestic cup competitions.