THE group stage draw for the 2018/19 Betfred Cup is set to take place this Friday.
Clubs across all four tiers of the SPFL will begin competitivive action in July, with the four teams competing in European qualifiers the only absentees.
Forty teams will be pulled out of the hat, with the remaining 38 SPFL sides being joined by Highland League champions Cove Rangers and Lowland League champions Spartans.
Read more: QUIZ OF THE SEASON: Test your knowledge of a memorable year in Scottish football
Here is all the information you need to know.
When is the draw?
It will take place on Friday night at 6.30pm, live on BT Sport 2.
It will also be streamed live on the BT Sport Facebook and Twitter pages and shared across the SPFL social media platforms.
How does the draw work?
There are eight groups of five teams, drawn on a regionalised basis.
There will be four 'North' groups and four 'South' groups.
The top two teams in each group will be seeded, with the bottom three unseeded. Seedings are based on final league position in the 2017/18 season.
When will the games take place?
There are five game weeks: 4 July, 18 July, 21 July, 25 July and 28 July.
These are subject to broadcast schedules, with BT Sport set to show live action.
What is the format?
The eight group winners and four best runners-up will progress to the last 16, where they will be joined by European representatives Rangers, Celtic, Hibernian and Aberdeen.
Any group game ending in a draw will go straight to a penalty shoot-out, with the winner earning a bonus point to go with the traditional point earned for a draw.
What are the seedings?
First seeds (north)
1 Heart of Midlothian
2 St Johnstone
3 Dundee
4 Ross County
First seeds (south)
6 Motherwell
8 Partick Thistle
Second seeds (north)
9 Dundee United
10 Dunfermline Athletic
11 Inverness Caledonian Thistle
12 Falkirk
Second seeds (south)
13 St Mirren
14 Livingston
15 Queen of the South
16 Morton
Unseeded clubs (north)
17 Brechin City
18 Raith Rovers
19 Alloa Athletic
20 Arbroath
21 East Fife
22 Forfar Athletic
23 Montrose
24 Peterhead
25 Stirling Albion
26 Elgin City
27 Cowdenbeath
28 Cove Rangers
Unseeded clubs (south)
29 Dumbarton
30 Ayr United
31 Stranraer
32 Airdrieonians
33 Queen's Park
34 Albion Rovers
35 Stenhousemuir
36 Clyde
37 Annan Athletic
38 Berwick Rangers
39 Edinburgh City
40 Spartans
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here