The first round of the League 1 Cup is split into two pools; Northern regions and South and Midlands regions, all the
League 1 clubs and any
National Conference League (NCL) clubs invited to enter to make the number of teams up to 16 enter at this stage. A draw is made at the beginning of each round to determine fixtures. In the first year of the cup, 2015, there were only 14 clubs in League 1 so two NCL clubs were invited to play in the competition. In 2016 and 2017 although there were 16 clubs in League 1, the non-UK based clubs;
Toulouse Olympique (2016) and
Toronto Wolfpack (2017); decided not to enter the cup so one NCL club was invited to play in their stead. Other than a regional based first round to reduce travel costs, the cup is a
knock-out competition with no
seeding. Only the final is played at a neutral venue. ::*
First Round: 16 clubs enter ::*
Second Round: Last 8 ::*
Semi Finals: Last 4. ::*
Final: Played at
Bloomfield Road ==Cup Finals==