2019–20 Northern Ireland Football League Cup

2019–20 Northern Ireland Football League Cup

BetMcLean League Cup
Tournament details
Country	Northern Ireland
Teams	36

The 2019–20 Northern Ireland Football League Cup (known as the BetMcLean League Cup for sponsorship purposes) will be the 34th edition of Northern Ireland's football knock-out cup competition for national league clubs, and the sixth edition of the competition as the Northern Ireland Football League Cup. This season's League Cup will be contested by all 36 clubs of the three divisions of the Northern Ireland Football League. The competition will begin in August 2019 with the first round, and will conclude in February 2020 with the final. The competition will be sponsored by McLean Bookmakers.

Linfield are the defending champions, having beaten Ballymena United 1–0 in the 2019 final to lift the League Cup for a record tenth time.

Format and Schedule

The competition is open to the 36 members of the Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL). The top sixteen ranked clubs from the 2018–19 season (all twelve 2018–19 NIFL Premiership clubs, along with the top four clubs from the 2018–19 NIFL Championship) will enter the competition in the second round as seeds. Of the remaining twenty NIFL clubs, eight of them will be randomly drawn to face each other in four first round matches. The remaining twelve clubs, along with the four first round winners, will make up the sixteen unseeded clubs in the second round.

From the third round onwards, the competition operates in a straight knockout format. Replays are not used in the competition, with all matches using extra time and penalties to determine the winner if necessary.

Round	First match date	Fixtures	Clubs
First Round	August 2019	4	36 → 32
Second Round	August 2019	16	32 → 16
Third Round	October 2019	8	16 → 8
Quarter-Finals	November 2019	4	8 → 4
Semi-Finals	December 2019	2	4 → 2
Final	February 2020	1	2 → 1

Results

The league tier of each club at the time of entering the competition is listed in parentheses.

First Round

The first round matches will take place in August 2019.

Team 1	Score	Team 2
	v
	v
	v
	v

Second Round

The second round matches will take place in August 2019. The top 16 league clubs from the previous season will be seeded in this round in order to avoid drawing each other.

Team 1	Score	Team 2
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v

Seeded	Unseeded
Ards Ballymena United Carrick Rangers Cliftonville Coleraine Crusaders Dundela Dungannon Swifts Glenavon Glentoran Institute Larne Linfield Newry City Portadown Warrenpoint Town	4 first round winners 12 first round byes

Third Round

The third round matches will take place in October 2019.

Team 1	Score	Team 2
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v
	v

Quarter-finals

The quarter-finals will take place in November 2019.

Team 1	Score	Team 2
	v
	v
	v
	v

Semi-finals

The semi-finals will take place in December 2019.

Team 1	Score	Team 2
	v
	v

Final

The final will be played in February 2020 at Windsor Park, Belfast.

Semi-final winner #1 v Semi-final winner #2

February 2020

Semi-final winner #1	v	Semi-final winner #2

Windsor Park, Belfast