Carabao Cup announce shock change to 2025/26 competition format as fans left baffled

The Carabao Cup will have a new format for the 2025/26 season - and fans are not happy.

The competition - also known as the EFL, or previously Football League, Cup - sees all 92 clubs in the top four divisions of English football enter in the opening two rounds, dependent on their finishing position in the previous season.

For instance, every Championship, League One and League Two enter in round one, except for some cases in which two second division clubs will receive a bye.

That occurs when there are exactly seven clubs that have qualified for European competition, with last season seeing the two best-ranked Championship clubs - Luton Town and Burnley - enter at round two.

This season's format has been complicated by the fact that seven clubs qualified for Europe via the Premier League, as well as Crystal Palace and Tottenham via their FA Cup and Europa League victories.

As a result, the EFL have announced a significant change to the competition which hasn't been seen since the 2011/12 season.

In order to ensure the mathematically correct numbers for each round, two League Two clubs will not enter the first round of the Carabao Cup.

Instead, there will be a four-team Preliminary Round, with the winner of those single knockout ties earning the right to enter in round one.

The four teams set to compete are Accrington Stanley and Newport County - the teams who finished 21st and 22nd in last season's League Two - as well as newly-promoted Barnet and Oldham Athletic.

The ties have been decided by region, meaning Oldham will face Accrington in the 'northern' fixture, with Barnet versus Newport classed as the 'southern' fixture.

This has been done because round one is also regionalised, with northern teams facing each other and southern teams likewise.

A Preliminary Round was required in 2011 after Birmingham and Fulham both qualified for Europe via the Football League Cup and the European Fair Play table.

An EFL statement reads: "The format of the Carabao Cup will be amended to introduce a four-team preliminary qualifying round, to reduce the number of clubs in Round One and Round Two in order to accommodate all Premier League European clubs in Round Three."

In response, one Oldham fan wrote: "So as a reward for getting back into the Football League, us and Barnet have to qualify for the League Cup."

A second fumed: "Once again we all have to change for the Premier League."

A third joked: "Can we go back to the National League please?"

Meanwhile, a Barnet fan wrote: "We get promoted to get that?"

And an Accrington fan stated: "Seems very unfair on the four clubs concerned. Just to help out those poor Premier League teams."