Manchester United are among several
leading English Premier League clubs to reject invitations from the
Football League to have their academy sides play in the revamped English
Football League Trophy.
United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester
City, and Tottenham Hotspur were missing when the draw for the knockout
tournament, which traditionally has just been made up from the 48 clubs
involved in English football’s third and fourth tiers, was made on
Wednesday.
But Premier League champions Leicester
City have agreed that their academy side will take part, with Chelsea
also set to have their fledgling players compete in a tournament amid
suggestions that Trophy matches would cause fixture clashes for
top-flight academy teams, who already had sufficient matches in a
season.
In a bid to give a higher profile to the
competition, officials announced in June that 16 ‘category one’ academy
outfits had been invited to take part.
The new tournament will see 64 teams
divided into 16 groups of four, on a north/south regional basis, each
group containing one ‘invited’ club.
Then the top two from each group will go
forward to a regional knockout round of 32, with the last 16,
quarter-finals and semi-finals all open draws ahead of a final at
London’s Wembley Stadium on April 2.
AFP
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