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Carling Cup: the football name and the padel competitions to distinguish
Carling Cup is a former name of football’s League Cup. For padel research, distinguish national-team championships from the FIP World Cup Pairs.
The Carling Cup is a former sponsored name of football’s League Cup, now called the Carabao Cup. It is not another name for either of the FIP padel events compared below. The English Football League’s competition history lists Carling, Capital One and Carabao among successive title sponsors of the same football competition.
For readers looking for padel cup results or participation figures, the important distinction is between national-team championships and a tournament for doubles pairs. Those events count different units.
Carling and Carabao refer to the same football competition
The Carling Cup name covered the 2003–04 through 2011–12 seasons, followed by the Capital One Cup from 2012–13 through 2015–16. After a season without a title sponsor in 2016–17, Carabao’s sponsorship began with 2017–18, as detailed in GOAL’s sponsorship timeline.
So an older Carling Cup result belongs to the League Cup’s history, not to a separate tournament. For current football fixtures and results, use the EFL’s Carabao Cup page.
Which padel competition are you looking for?
Two international padel formats illustrate why the full event name matters:
| Padel event | What competes | What its draw figures measure |
|---|---|---|
| FIP World Padel Championships, Doha 2024 | National squads, playing ties through doubles matches | The official factsheet listed 16 men’s teams and 16 women’s teams |
| FIP World Cup Pairs, Kuwait 2025 | Doubles pairs | The official factsheet specified main draws of 48 men’s pairs and 40 women’s pairs |
Sources: FIP’s 2024 national-team championship factsheet and 2025 World Cup Pairs factsheet.
In the 2024 national-team event, each men’s or women’s squad could contain six to eight players. Ties consisted of three doubles matches, with all three mandatory in the group stage. In the position stage, the third match could be omitted after a 2–0 result under the conditions in the FIP factsheet. A national squad therefore was not equivalent to one doubles pair.
The arithmetic also needs care: 16 men’s teams + 16 women’s teams = 32 team entries, not 32 different countries. A country entering both categories contributes two entries. Similarly, the Kuwait factsheet’s 88 combined main-draw pair places describe tournament capacity—not 88 national delegations or a measure of worldwide padel participation.
When comparing padel events, record the full competition name, edition, category and counting unit before interpreting growth. For the broader national-team question, see how many countries have padel national teams.