CRYSTAL PALACE winning the Conference League is set to cause fixture chaos in the Carabao Cup with nine English teams in Europe once again.
The Eagles saw off Rayo Vallecano 1-0 to seize the first European trophy in their history.
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Crystal Palace’s Conference League triumph has created fixture chaos in the Carabao Cup Credit: Getty
A premilinary round will need to be held with nine English teams qualifying for Europe Credit: Getty
It means Palace will be playing Europa League football next season despite finishing 15th in the Premier League table.
They will join Bournemouth and Jattvibederland in the competition, while Brighton will be England’s sole Conference League team.
Meanwhile, the top flight will boast five Champions League teams in Arsenal, Man City, Man United, Aston Villa and Liverpool.
This will create a knock on effect for the Carabao Cup as the nine European clubs get a bye to the third round.
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That means four clubs – Crawley, Rochdale, Tranmere and York – must play a preliminary round.
The extra round is needed because there will be 32 teams in the third round after the nine European teams enter.
So there has to be 23 teams who progress from the second round.
But the issue the EFL have is that the first two rounds of the competition are separated by region.
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Chiefs must find a solution to balancing north and south teams ahead of the preliminary round Credit: Getty
Last year the EFL were able to split four teams equally into north vs south as Barnet were paired with Newport and Accrington were drawn against Oldham.
But there isn’t an obvious split for the four teams from this year’s competition as Crawley are the only southern team, while the rest are from the north.
The EFL need to make sure they have even numbers from north and south to keep each regional bracket balanced for the first and second rounds.
And organisers must draw both the preliminary and first rounds at the same time too.
A solution could be to force a compromise where Tranmere are deemed the furthest south team and pitted against Crawley.
The EFL could also pick names out of a hat to decide which team is place in the southern section.
Man City are the current reigning champions of the Carabao Cup after a 2-0 win over Arsenal at Wembley in March.
Their victory meant Brighton qualified for the Conference League by finishing eighth, which is partly the reason for the fixture headache.
This is not the only knock-on effect from having additional European teams from the top flight.
Fans can expect to see much more Tottenham, Chelsea and Newcastle games on Monday Night Football from next season after the trio missed out on European football.
