EFL Announce 2025-26 Carabao Cup Format

EFL have announced the format for 2025-26 Carabao Cup, which will feature a preliminary round.

The addition of the preliminary round comes after nine Premier League clubs qualified for Europe – including title holders, Newcastle Untied – which caused an imbalance to the usual second round stage when most top-flight clubs enter, and necessitated a tweaking of format to prevent any issues.

Accrington Stanley and Newport County finished 21st and 22nd in League Two which meant that they will face the preliminary round alongside EFL returnees, Barnet and Oldham.

EFL will continue to adopt a northern and southern split for the preliminary round which means that Accrington will face Oldham in the northern section, whilst Newport meet Barnet in the southern section, with both ties played across 5-6 August.

The home teams in both ties will be determined on 26 June at 4:30pm BST live on Sky Sports News in the UK, alongside the first round draw which will follow the preliminary round draw.

EFL also officially announced the dates for each round of the season, with the Semi-Finals’ first leg delayed a week to take place across 13-14 January, rather than the opening week of that month as was the case last season.