The EFL Trophy doesn’t have a sponsor yet. So here’s an idea

The EFL Trophy, that proud champion of lower-league football, is currently unsponsored.

No doubt this will change soon. But just in case the league is still trying to pin down a new backer, here’s an idea.

Why not have it sponsored by the business that would capture its modern identity more than anyone else?

Why not have a name plastered across it that everyone would associate with its brave new world?

How about…the Premier League?

The Premier League Trophy. Yeah, that fits.

Now, that organisation has already thrown plenty of money at it already since 2016 - but, between you and me, I reckon they probably have a few more quid behind the sofa.

So why not make the marriage complete? Instead of simply offering up prize money and injecting Under-21 teams into the cup previously the preserve of Leagues One and Two, turning a cluster of regular matchgoing fans off the competition in the process, how about full and comprehensive backing?

That way, we’d have it not just nudged under our noses but rammed in our faces, which is the modus operandi of top-level football these days is it not?

One of the many massive Trophy group stage crowds (Image: Barbara Abbott)

We could have Carlisle United v Harrogate Town in the Premier League Trophy, Barrow v Morecambe in the Premier League Trophy, Burton Albion v Mansfield Town in the Premier League Trophy, Sutton United v Crawley Town in the Premier League Trophy...

Clubs at such levels could duly consider their level of gratitude and increase it.

They could also be relieved of the pretence that the modern Trophy is first and foremost about themselves at EFL levels.

They could be officially glad at being officially part of the Premier League, even in a training-cone kind of way.

They could see themselves as a fundamental cog in the Premier League machinery, which as everyone knows is much more appealing and meaningful than being a lower-league club on its own merits.

That way, it wouldn’t matter if only a few hundred people are at your group stage games. It would still be the Premier League, and the reflected glamour of that would be far more important than supporters attending your actual stadium.

It would encapsulate beyond remaining doubt what matters the most about the Trophy now – that hordes of young players at elite clubs may get “minutes” in “men’s football” which their clubs and levels suddenly realise they can't provide.

It would provide full, complete and argument-ending commercial credibility to the stockpiling culture. It would take years of proud lower-league history and give it the final cleansing it deserves.

Calling it The Premier League Trophy would help all of us, come to think of it. In daily life it would force us set our sights higher than simply weighing up a tradesman, leasing a car or contemplating a Margherita.

It would urge us to worship the true God of the game. And once that’s all done, everyone can concentrate on the vital next step: removing EFL clubs from the competition entirely.