Setanta Sports Cup

The Setanta Sports Cup, commonly known as just the Setanta Cup, is a club football competition featuring teams from both football associations on the island of Ireland. It was inaugurated in 2005 as a cross-border competition between clubs from the League of Ireland from the Republic of Ireland and the IFA Premiership from Northern Ireland.

The cup is sponsored by Setanta Sports, the Irish subscription sports television network. The competition was launched with Setanta providing support for prize money (€350,000) and sponsorship (€1.6 million over four years). In June 2009, the company went into administration and ceased broadcasting in Great Britain, putting the future of the competition in doubt. The draw for the 2009 tournament was postponed for a month but the competition eventually continued. The competition has seen instances of crowd violence at its games since its inception.

The competition features six teams from each league with the top four from the respective leagues and the winners of the respective cup competitions (FAI Cup and League of Ireland Cup from the League of Ireland, and the Irish Cup and Irish League Cup from the IFA Premiership) taking part. If a club has qualified via a cup win and would also qualify by league table position, one of the spots would be awarded to the next highest club in the league table that has not qualified via a cup win. The competition is played in a two-legged knock-out tie format up until the final. Four clubs from each League participate in the first round. The four winners from the first round ties join four seeded teams (usually the two League winners, the FAI cup winners and the Irish Cup winners) in the quarter-finals. The quarter-final winners again play a two-legged knock-out tie in the semi-finals for a place in the final, which is a single game.

The cup logo was designed by Red&Grey Design.