Scotland League Cup

The cup has its origins in a regional cup competition called the Southern League Cup which was introduced in 1940 when wartime restrictions led to a suspension of the Scottish Cup. This tournament did not involve all of the teams who comprised the Scottish Football League prior to the outbreak of war, although its last, expanded edition after the conflict ended was well-attended, demonstrating enthusiasm amongst supporters for the continuation of such a tournament. The first official Scottish Football League Cup was contested during the 1946–47 season, when Rangers defeated Aberdeen in the final.

The competition was very popular with supporters during the first few decades of its existence. The tournament consisted of 8 or 9 groups consisting of 4 or 5 teams. The groups were seeded into two sets with the top 16 teams in Division One making up the first four groups, guaranteeing that four 'big' teams would play four 'lesser' teams in the quarter-finals. From 1949–50 to 1998–99 the final was played prior to the festive season which provided the excitement of an early trophy on offer, except in 1968–69 (postponed due to a fire at Hampden), 1977–78, 1978–79 and 1983–84 (an experimental season with a group stage in the third round followed by the semi-finals).

Extra league fixtures after the Scottish Premier Division was formed in 1975 and expanding European competitions meant that by the early 1980s the League Cup's long-winded format, which involved group rounds played early in the season leading to two-legged knock-out rounds, attracted much criticism. From 1984–85 the tournament was revamped to a shorter, single elimination knock-out format. From that period Rangers became the dominant force in the competition having previously been roughly level with Celtic in terms of trophies, winning nine times in twelve years to increase their total to 20 before Celtic won their tenth in 1997–98.

During the 1999–2000 competition, the semi-finals and final were moved to the springtime to avoid the congestion of fixtures caused by the early rounds of the UEFA club competitions and Scotland's representatives in Europe were given automatic byes until the third round of competition. For the 2016–17 season a pre-Christmas schedule was again adopted, although delayed springtime finals were played in 2020–21 (due to disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic) and 2022–23 (due to changes to accommodate the 2022 FIFA World Cup, albeit Scotland were not involved in that tournament).

From the 2016–17 edition the League Cup reverted to an early-season group stage format exempting the Scottish representatives in Europe, with single-elimination knock-out in the last 16 onwards. Due to the strength of those exempt teams – particularly Celtic who won seven of the first nine editions in the format, although their total of 22 was still some way behind Rangers' 28 – it has been rare for a club who qualified from the group stage to reach the final, with only two beaten finalists (Motherwell in 2017–18 and Livingston in 2020–21) doing so, and St Johnstone in the latter tournament the only winners.

The League Cup has been known by different names due to sponsorship: