Last week’s Telegraph report that the Premier League was in negotiations to introduce up to 16 of their clubs’ U21 teams into the Football League Trophy (aka Johnstone’s Paint Trophy) will have sounded vaguely familiar to many fans…
That’s because it was also floated in March 2015 as an alternative to Greg Dyke’s proposal to insert a new “League 3” - made up of Premier League B-teams - between League 2 and the Conference. League 3 prompted a large backlash from supporters and the Football League. It was subsequently ditched.
See more at: http://www.fsf.org.uk/blog/view/premier-league-u21-plan-johnstone-paint-trophy#poll