Season › 2016-17 › News Everton confirm participation in EFL Trophy , 7 July, 6comments | Jump to most recent Everton will be one of the 16 teams added to the EFL Trophy starting this coming season. The competition, launched in the 1983-84 season as the Associate Member's Cup and formerly known as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, has historically been open to the 48 clubs from Leagues One and Two but this season 16 Category 1 Premier League academy/under-21 teams have been permitted entry. In an effort to have squads comprised mostly of development players, invited clubs must ensure that at least six of their starting XI are under the age of 21 as of 30th June this year. The competition will initially feature 16 groups consisting of four clubs – one will be an invited club, plus at least one club from both League One and League Two – and Everton will play each team in the group once, with one of the home matches stipulated to be played at Goodison Park. Reader Comments (6) Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer Scott Bosworth 1 Posted 07/07/2016 at 20:13:45 At last a REAL chance for silverware! Tim Greeley 2 Posted 07/07/2016 at 20:36:28 McGeady is gonna OWN this competition. Opportunity missed letting Hibbo go too...... Michael Kenrick 3 Posted 07/07/2016 at 20:55:27 Yet another change to 'development' footie in the unerring quest to make England great once again... It should be good in giving the Academy players some properly competitive games but I'm surprised they are requiring only six Under-21 players. I guess that makes sense if the Premier League clubs use fringe and reserves players who are over 21, rather than established first-team players.And they've renamed the old [Milk / Coca Cola / Rumbelows / Worthington / Carling / Capital One] League Cup, which is now re-branded as the EFL Cup. My head is starting to spin... Ian Bennett 4 Posted 07/07/2016 at 21:16:50 Moyes regretted not putting a youth team in non league. I wonder if the new set up would consider it? Have to get a long term improvement given reserve football is dead, and the Under-21 league is way off the pace. Martin Clark 5 Posted 07/07/2016 at 22:23:38 They could both use and support small clubs like Warrington Town by providing players to get proper competitive game time and potentially help a local side climb into the league. John Hughes 6 Posted 08/07/2016 at 16:22:43 Bring back the Central League and the London Combination so the young players play against senior players, because at the moment they are playing against their own age, not playing men who know a thing or two. Add Your Comments In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site. » Log in now Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site. About these ads © ToffeeWeb