Scottish League Cup


The Scottish League Cup, also known as the Premier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League cup in existence. 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 28 times. St Mirren are the current holders, winning their 2nd title after beating Celtic 3–1 at Hampden Park on 14 December 2025.
The domestic television rights are held by Premier Sports who replaced BT Sport from the 2019–20 season.

Format

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 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 three best runners-up progress into the second round, where they are joined by the five 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 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 as BT Sport took over rights from BBC Scotland. In February 2016 the SPFL announced the League Cup final would be moved to November.

History

The cup has its origins in a regional cup competition called the Southern League Cup which was introduced in 1940 when wartime restrictions led to a suspension of the Scottish Cup. This tournament did not involve all of the teams who comprised the Scottish 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 the 1946–47 season, when Rangers defeated Aberdeen in the final.
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. From 1949–50 to 1998–99 the final was played prior to the festive season which provided the excitement of an early trophy on offer, except in 1968–69, 1977–78, 1978–79 and 1983–84.
Extra league fixtures after the Scottish 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. From 1984–85 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 with Celtic in terms of trophies, winning nine times in twelve years to increase their total to 20 before Celtic won their tenth in 1997–98.
During the 1999–2000 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 the 2016–17 season a pre-Christmas schedule was again adopted, although delayed springtime finals were played in 2020–21 and 2022–23.
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. 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 doing so, and St Johnstone in the latter tournament the only winners.

Sponsorship

The League Cup has been known by different names due to sponsorship:
PeriodSponsorName
1946–1978No sponsorScottish League Cup
1979–1981Bell's whiskyBell's League Cup
1981–1984No sponsorScottish League Cup
1984–1992Skol LagerSkol Cup
1992–1994No sponsorScottish League Cup
1994–1998Coca-ColaCoca-Cola Cup
1998–1999No sponsorScottish League Cup
1999–2008CIS InsuranceCIS Insurance Cup
2008–2011The Co-operative InsuranceCo-operative Insurance Cup
2011–2013Scottish GovernmentScottish Communities League Cup
2013–2015No sponsorScottish League Cup
2015QTS GroupThe Scottish League Cup presented by QTS
2015–2016Utilita EnergyThe Scottish League Cup presented by Utilita
2016–2021BetfredBetfred Cup
2021–2022Premier SportsPremier Sports Cup
2022–2024ViaplayViaplay Cup
2024–presentPremier SportsPremier Sports Cup

Trophy

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 the Victory Cup.
This left the Scottish Football League without a cup for their new tournament. On 15 January 1947, long-term Clyde, and then Scottish Football League, chairman John McMahon donated the three-handled trophy that is still used to this day.
During the 1980s when Skol lager sponsored the competition, a second trophy known as the Skol Cup was also awarded. After the 1987–88 competition when Rangers 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.

European qualification

Until 1995, the winners of the Scottish League Cup were granted a place in the UEFA 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 was Raith Rovers who represented Scotland in the 1995–96 UEFA Cup after winning the League Cup the previous season as a First Division club. Since this privilege has been discontinued, some winners have missed out on European football qualification the following season, including 2015–16 winners Ross County who have still never qualified for European football in their history. Additionally Ross County and East Fife are the only League Cup winners to have never played in a UEFA club competition.

Media coverage

Scottish League Cup matches are shown live by Premier Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In Australia, the Scottish League Cup is broadcast by beIN Sports. The 2009 Scottish League Cup Final was shown live on SBS due to a fixture clash on previous hosts' Setanta channel. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Scottish League Cup matches are shown live by ESPN

List of broadcasters

PeriodChannel
2002–04Five
2004–16BBC One Scotland
2016–20BT Sport
2020–22Premier Sports
2022–24Viaplay
2024–presentPremier Sports