It was the Welsh FA who stopped Welsh clubs competing in the Welsh FA Cup. That was back in the days when there was beef between everyone as the WFA wanted the exiled clubs to play in its new/relatively new League of Wales. So it did things like scheduled the Welsh FA Cup fixyures on the same day as the English FA Cup fixtures, with both associations having a rule that clubs had to play their main/strongest team. That forced the Welsh clubs to choose between entering one or other of the cups, and they chose the Englsih one. I think there's been a formal rule change since on it all, but that's how the FAW effectively pushed them out of the Welsh Cup back in the day..
What's changed nopw is basically a lot regarding Welsh football. Despite being a bit of a lick-spittle under John Delaney, Noel Mooney has actually turned out to be a fairly good CEO for the Welsh FA. They've done a complete review of the club game and are implementing a number of changes - including increased prize money and expanding their top tier to 16 clubs. This League Cup move is part of that, and seems designed primarily to boost the Welsh coefficient. There's also a mechanism within it whereby money from it will be shared across all clubs.
What is potentially most interesting for me is the impact it has upon the smaller Welsh clubs - Newport and particularly Merthyr, who as a non-league club in Tier 7 in England are not part of this proposal. Newport were the most beligerent against the FAW when cliubs were forced to play outside of Wales by them, so there is still a lot of bad blood between them. But if they continue to just make up the numbers in League 2/National League then they may over time start to consider the benefits of playing in Wales instead (Colwyn Bay made the move a few years ago and it's bene broady positive for them). I suspect Merthyr will feel very left out of all of this as a Welsh club playing in England but not invited to the LC party. It could well give them an added incentive to genuinely consider a shift to the Welsh structure rather than remaining in the lower non-league reaches.
Bookmarks