Notts County have confirmed the results of the recent survey on the future of the EFL Trophy.
More than 600 Notts supporters took part and an overview of the findings, which the club have passed on to the EFL, is below:- Just under 45% of surveyed supporters would like to see the competition abandoned altogether from 2017-18
- 27.5% would like to see the format of the competition revert back to involving League One and League Two only
- 22% of supporters elected to change the format to include clubs from League One, League Two and the National League
- 5.5% of those surveyed were split between leaving the format of the competition as it is with no changes, or making the sole change of allowing League One and League Two clubs to field any team they wish
The additional comments made for interesting reading and formed the basis of the club's findings submitted to the EFL.
Much of the feedback focussed on the fixing of ticket pricing to one lower rate across all clubs, enabling promotion to younger audiences and families, while there was also strong support for true regionalisation of the tournament and the removal of academy sides altogether.
Another idea pitched by many respondents included the use of the tournament as a pre-season competition, enabling Saturday fixtures and a competitive environment for new players to bed into their respective teams.
There was also a large amount of support to see the EFL Trophy move to a true knock-out style competition, thus removing group stages, and to see the competition used to trial new rules or technologies such as video refereeing.
Other suggestions included the introduction of golden goal, seeing points awarded for goals scored, the added benefit of winning straight promotion into the third round of the FA and League Cups, giving one supporter per team the opportunity to play, including Scottish, Welsh or Irish league teams and the abolition of the offside rule.
SLO team member Dougie Pullen said: "The results of the survey have been shared with the EFL and I hope the views expressed by our fans will be taken into consideration as plans are made for the future of this competition."