Nottingham Forest's City Ground to host Women's League Cup final

The 2020 Women’s League Cup final will be held at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground on February 29, the Football Association has confirmed.

Since the competition’s inception in 2011, the final has always been staged at men’s stadia and this is the first time that the match will be played at the 30,445-capacity City Ground.

Historically, attendances for the Women’s League Cup finals have always been markedly lower than for the FA Cup final, with just 2,424 attending last season’s meeting between Manchester City and Arsenal at Bramall Lane. The competition’s record attendance for a final was 5,028 at Rotherham United’s New York Stadium to watch Arsenal beat Notts County 3-0 in 2015.

Managers and players in the women’s game have urged the League Cup to reform, given its convoluted structure and the mixture of full-time and part-time clubs that results in one-sided scorelines.

At the competition’s group stage this season, many of which were sparsely-attended, 23 teams were divided into two northern and southern groups – but the divide in resources between the Women’s Super League and Championship sides means that there have been very few cup upsets. Even in the quarter-final, Manchester City overcame Sheffield United 4-0 and int the group stages Arsenal beat London Bees 9-0.

Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal all progressed to the semi-final on Wednesday. Only Arsenal and Manchester City have ever won the competition before.

The semi-final draw will be broadcast on BT Sport on Saturday.