A Carling spokesperson said: "The ticket allocation we receive at Wembley Stadium does not allow us to segregate fans as we were able to do at the Millennium Stadium. As a result we are unable to distribute our tickets in the same way as in the previous two years.

"Despite this the 2008 Carling Cup Final will see the most number of fans at a domestic cup final since the start of the all-seater era with each team receiving an allocation of more than 31,000.

"In addition, we are also planning a number of other initiatives which celebrate the occasion with fans and will reveal details of this closer to the Final.

"Wembley Stadium provide a further 17,000 tickets to the members of 'Club Wembley' under pre-existing arrangements. The Football League distributes a total of 6,900 tickets across the 92 professional clubs, its commercial partners, County Football Associations and various football stakeholder groups".