The 2023–24 Scottish League Cup, also known as the Viaplay Cup for sponsorship reasons, was the 78th season of Scotland's second-most prestigious

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knockout competition.

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

were the two-time defending champions, but were eliminated in the second round by

Kilmarnock Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

won their 28th Scottish League Cup beating Aberdeen 1–0 in the final.

Schedule

Format

The competition began with eight groups of five teams. The five clubs initially competing in the UEFA Champions League (

and

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

( Aberdeen) and Europa Conference League ( Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian) received a bye to the second round. The group stage consisted of 40 teams: all remaining teams that competed across the SPFL in

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, the 2022–23 Highland Football League champions (

Brechin City Brechin City Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the townDespite the name of the football club, Brechin is not an official city. Brechin was historically known as a city because it has a cathedral. of Brechin in Angus. The club w ...

) and

2022–23 Lowland Football League The 2022–23 Scottish Lowland Football League is the 10th season of the Lowland Football League, part of the fifth tier of the Scottish football pyramid system. Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic are the reigning champions, but are unable to defend their ...

champions ( The Spartans). Unlike previous seasons where the remaining group stage spot was given to the runners-up of the Highland League or Lowland League, Cowdenbeath – who finished 15th in the Lowland League, having been relegated from

Scottish League Two The Scottish League Two, known as cinch League Two for sponsorship reasons, is the fourth tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish League Two was ...

in 2022 – accepted an invitation to participate. The winners of each of the eight groups, as well as the three best runners-up, progressed to the second round (last 16). At this stage, the competition reverted to the traditional

knock-out A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking ...

format. The three group winners with the highest points total and the European entrants were seeded.

Bonus point system

The traditional point system of awarding three points for a win and one point for a draw was used. In addition, for each group stage match that finished in a draw, a penalty shoot-out took place, with the winner being awarded a bonus point.

Group stage

The teams were seeded according to their final league positions in 2022–23 and drawn into eight groups, with each group comprising one team from each pot. The draw for the group stage took place on 8 June 2023 and was broadcast live on Viaplay & th
SPFL YouTube channel

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Best runners-up

Knockout phase

Second round

Draw and seeding

, Aberdeen, Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian entered the competition at this stage, due to their participation in UEFA club competitions. They joined the three group winners with the best records as the eight seeded sides. The other five group winners and the three best runners up were the unseeded sides. Teams in bold advanced to the quarter-finals.

Matches

Quarter-finals

The draw took place on Sunday 20 August 2023 following the

match live on Viaplay Sports 1. Teams in bold advanced to the semi-finals.

Semi-finals

The draw took place on Wednesday 27 September 2023 following the

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match live on Viaplay Sports 1. Teams in bold advanced to the final.

Final

Media coverage

The domestic broadcasting rights for the competition are held exclusively by Viaplay Sports, who will broadcast between 12 and 16 live matches per season, as well as highlights. The following matches were broadcast live on UK television:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 Scottish League Cup Scottish League Cup seasons League Cup League Cup