There was something very badly wrong with last night’s Carabao Cup third round draw.

It wasn’t the usual ‘mountain-out-of-a-molehill’ excitement levels Sky hyped, or that they took an eternity to move from the end of a penalty shoot-out to the actual draw, in order to be able to fit in the ad breaks I can only presume they were obliged to show.

And it wasn’t even the persistence in using that plastic bowl (through which you can see the numbers on the balls) rather than the good old-fashioned velvet bag.

It was that in plain sight, right in front of our eyes, the English Football League seeded teams in a cup competition.

Before anyone says that teams enter rounds at different stages in many cup competitions, or that seeding is commonplace in other sports such as tennis and snooker, I know all that.

However, in the FA Cup for instance, teams from entire leagues enter at various rounds, and that is as much to do with practicalities as anything else – put them in all in at the start and there would be more than 370 first round ties!

In last night’s draw, six teams were given preferential treatment. Teams who are playing in two European competitions.

It wasn’t even all teams who are playing in Europe, which would still have been an unsatisfactory but slightly more understandable choice.

Chelsea went in the pot with ‘the rest’, or the ‘plebs’, or whatever you want to call them, despite also having qualified for European competition.

No, last night a cohort of six teams were singled out, selected, seeded – because the next round of the Carabao Cup was scheduled for the same week as the Champions League.

And if it had been moved back a week, it would have clashed with the Europa League.

It was as if the need to not inconvenience the fortunate few was some sort of reasonable smokescreen for actually giving them a leg up.

The only smoke on view last night was being blown up the rear-ends of six clubs.

The EFL decided the only ‘fair’ way to deal with this perceived problem was to allocate six spaces in a ‘pre draw’ so that they couldn’t be paired against each other.

This meant that teams in the Champions League could play their Carabao Cup ties when the Europa League games are on, and vice-versa.

I get the logic behind it, but I don’t see the fairness. At all.

Before we go any further, let’s remember that all six teams (and Chelsea) have already avoided playing in the first two rounds of the Carabao Cup due to their due to their participation in European tournaments, presumably to avoid them playing too many games.

The poor loves. They must have been stewing about the possibility of a Tuesday night trip to Barrow or Plymouth on the flights home from their post-season friendlies on a different continent, or their pre-season tour to somewhere on the other side of the world.

Isn’t it amazing how a long journey within the UK jeopardises elite player fitness, but flying and jet-lag don’t…

If the six teams had to avoid clashing with European games then why not at least insist they all had to play away games, just to balance out the advantage a bit?

You can imagine the squeals from the big-club trough if that happened.

Instead we ended up with four teams who had skipped the first two rounds and also couldn’t be drawn against each other being guaranteed a home game.

At this point, any non-Watford fans reading this might be thinking ‘you’re just bitter because you got drawn away to Manchester City’.

I’m not bitter. But I am flipping furious that the draw format meant City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and Aston Villa couldn’t be drawn against each other.

Watford and the rest of the ‘have-nots’ had a chance of being paired with those six teams, but those six teams had 0% chance of being paired with each other.

Solutions? Well firstly, why not just put every team from all four divisions in the first round?

I know that would mean, because 92 clubs don’t neatly fit in a format where you need to end up with two finalists, you’d have to some byes, but if everyone is in the pot and those byes are drawn out in the same random way as the rest of the round, what’s the problem?

Someone in a suit somewhere would say the problem is perceived as being that the byes could all go to League Two clubs, while all 20 Premier League clubs had to play an extra game in early August.

I wouldn’t see an issue with that myself, but I can imagine it would cause the dropping of canapes in Premier League boardrooms.

Another option would be to totally ignore the fact there are European competitions taking place and draw the third round as usual.

Tell everyone in advance, and if any club feels they don’t fancy it then they are at liberty not to enter.

Yes, two games for one club in the same week would be tough, but if any teams are able to field two XIs at once then surely it has to be those who seemingly stockpile players?

After all, these six clubs are being seeded are allowed to step in two rounds after most of the other entrants, and yet are very likely to rest most of the players who will play in European competitions anyway.

Don’t forget, it was the ‘big clubs’ who started the trend of resting their established players in the league cup and fielding teams full of Academy players.

It all smacks of favouritism. Giving an advantage to those who need it least. Trying everything possible to avoid, Heaven forbid, a final that doesn’t involve at least one of the teams that the TV broadcasters get so excited about.

Since 2014, the league cup has been won by just four different clubs. Great for them, very dull and predictable for everyone else.

But those clubs are perceived as box office and, let’s be honest, when this season has also seen league matches moved to all manner of days and times to facilitate live TV coverage, it’s easy to see who holds all the aces.

Wouldn’t it be amusing if Watford sent all their tickets for the tie at the Etihad back to Manchester, opened up all the corporate areas at Vicarage Road, put on Sky Sports+ and invited fans to come and watch the game in the warm without the need to commute several hours there and back?

I accept there would be Watford supporters who would want to go to the game, come what may and regardless of any circumstances.

But if a televised game hosted by the champions of the England was played in front of a half-empty stadium without a single away fan, it would look awful.

And that would be a timely, very public and much-needed reminder to the buffoons who came up with this solution - that affects the many in order to cater for the few - that football should be, as a great man once said, “a game to excite people, it’s for the man on the terraces”.