Don’t take supporters for granted

THE Carabao Cup has generated plenty of publicity over the past week, but, sadly, much of it for the wrong reasons. The BBC published an interesting statistic in midweek, stating that there were 274 changes made by teams across 19 matches in Tuesday’s second round ties.

This shows that clubs aren’t making the competition a priority and that, certainly in the early rounds, there isn’t much enthusiasm.

As we’ve touched on already this season, a hectic opening few weeks of the campaign in league and cup doesn’t help.

In addition, the fact the third round draw was in China at 4.15am on Thursday has been the subject of plenty of criticism. Much of that, we believe, is justified.

Yes, the EFL want to grow in international markets and also work well in partnership with new sponsors, Carabao. That’s fine, no one has a problem with that.

In fact, most people would encourage the EFL to look for commercial deals around the world that can produce extra revenue and, ultimately, benefit their clubs.

However, there is a caveat. And that is that the EFL shouldn’t take for granted fans in this country. The fans that turn up week in, week out to watch their team.

They deserved the chance to see that draw at a reasonable time, as did players, managers and staff at those clubs that got through. As it was, most had to wait until later that morning to find out who they had drawn.

So our message to the EFL would be: don’t forget the fans. Don’t forget those supporters who are already forking out hard-earned money to effectively watch reserve team football.

If you take the fans for granted, then perhaps one day they won’t turn up. And viewers around the world will wonder why they are watching games from half-empty stadiums.