Holders Ross County and Caley Thistle prepare for Betfred Cup draw
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HOLDERS Ross County will find out tomorrow night (Friday) who they will face in the new-look and regionalised Betfred Cup.
The Staggies, who won what was last season known as the League Cup, are one of the seeds in the north section for the first round group stage draw, which will be live on BT Sport from 7.30pm tomorrow, conducted by pundits Chris Sutton and Michael Stewart.
The first round group stage of the Betfred Cup features 40 teams: all 38 SPFL clubs not involved in UEFA qualifiers as well as Highland League champions Cove Rangers and new Lowland League entrants East Stirlingshire.
Edinburgh City, Lowland League champions, make their competition debut as the newest member of the SPFL.
Teams will be drawn into eight groups of five teams, on a seeded basis.
In each group teams will play each other once in a round-robin format on each of July 16, 20, 23, 27 and 30 (subject to live broadcast selections).
In the first round group stage there are three points for a win and one point for a draw, with drawn matches in the group stage going straight to a penalty shoot-out and the winner of the penalty shoot-out being awarded a bonus point.
Eight first round group stage winners and the four best runners-up progress to the second round, joined by the SPFL’s four UEFA qualifying clubs, Celtic, Aberdeen, Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian.
The competition concludes with the Betfred Cup final at Hampden Park on Sunday, 27 November.
SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster said: “We’re absolutely thrilled that our valued broadcast partner BT Sport is giving such prominence to the first round group stage of the ground-breaking Betfred Cup and helping bring all the excitement of the live draw to football fans across Scotland and the rest of the UK.”
The format is as follows:
*** Eight groups with five teams in each group.
*** Regionalised draw - four groups in the North section and four in the South section.
***All SPFL clubs not participating in European competitions plus East Stirlingshire (Lowland League) and Cove Rangers (Highland League).
*** Three pots for each regional section - top seeds, second seeds and unseeded clubs.
*** A group will be made up of one top seed, one second seed and three unseeded clubs.
Top seeds - North
1 St Johnstone
2 Ross County
3 Inverness Caledonian Thistle
4 Dundee
Top seeds - South
5 Motherwell
6 Partick Thistle
7 Hamilton Academical
8 Kilmarnock
Second seeds - North
9 Dundee United
10 Falkirk
11 Raith Rovers
12 Dumbarton
Second seeds - South
13 Rangers
14 Morton
15 St Mirren
16 Queen of the South
Unseeded clubs - North
17 Dunfermline Athletic
18 Alloa Athletic
19 Peterhead
20 Brechin City
21 East Fife
22 Cowdenbeath
23 Forfar Athletic
24 Elgin City
25 Stirling Albion
26 Montrose
27 Arbroath
28 Cove Rangers
Unseeded clubs - South
29 Ayr United
30 Livingston
31 Stranraer
32 Airdrieonians
33 Albion Rovers
34 Stenhousemuir
35 Queen's Park
36 Clyde
37 Annan Athletic
38 Berwick Rangers
39 Edinburgh City
40 East Stirlingshire
