Carabao Cup 2018/19 Rule Tweaks: Extra Time Scrapped Altogether, ABBA Penalty Shootout Method Axed And VAR To Be Used In Some (But Not All) Games

Chris Wright

8th, June 2018

The EFL brass converged at their annual summer conference today and, amid the Ferrero Roche and the prosecco, they managed to come up with some daring new rule changes for next season’s League Cup.

The headline tweak is that extra time has been scrapped altogether, meaning that as of 2018/19, all Carabao Cup games tied after 90 minutes will go directly to a penalty shoot-out to combat “additional fatigue issues”.

Speaking of shoot-outs, the ill-fated and needlessly convoluted ABBA penalty format has been abolished (after being trialled in the competition all of last season) in favour of a return to the standard ABAB method.

Elsewhere, draw seeding has been removed from the first two rounds, though the first round will remain split into a North/South arrangement.

Lastly, the EFL have confirmed that VAR will be implemented at every game held at a Premier League ground which is hardly surprising given how smoothly it ran last year.

Hardly earth-shaking, but the abolition of extra-time is definitely long overdue, especially as teams rarely go for the jugular in those additional 30 minutes and prefer to gamble on penalties anyway.

Posted in League Cup

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