Inverness boss John Hughes wants summer football
Inverness boss John Hughes has welcomed the new League Cup format and hopes it is a stepping stone to summer football.
Inverness boss John Hughes has welcomed the new League Cup format and hopes it is a stepping stone to summer football.
The Scottish Professional Football League this week announced a radical overhaul of the tournament.
Among the changes are a new summer group stage involving the 38 senior clubs not involved in European action and the winners of the Highland and Lowland Leagues.
The round-robin matches will be staged in the second fortnight in July before the regular league season gets underway, with the hope the lure of warm weather will bring fans swarming back through the turnstiles.
Ahead of the Premiership game against Kilmarnock on Saturday, Hughes was asked about the structural changes to the game.
Magnificent,'' he said.We have to get together and revamp Scottish football. It is a spectator sport.
We play in the winter. Every time we come to this time of the year, supporters, coaches, newspaper men we all start banging the drum about summer football. We must go to summer football. It is a spectator sport.
I think this is the first step towards that. I really do.
See if it doesn't work, so what?
As long we have tried something to try to improve the game for spectators.
For a coach it is fantastic. We will be competitive but we will be using them as part of our pre-season build-up.
I think it is great that someone has shown the initiative and have been innovative to try that.
It has got my support. I want the rest of Scottish football to follow suit, I want to be playing football in the summer.''