The next 25 EFL Championship title winners have been predicted by AI (2026-2050) | OneFootball

ChatGPT has predicted each of the next 25 second-tier winners

The Championship is one of the most unpredictable leagues in the world.

Every year, predicting where certain sides will finish and who will wind up winning the league is proving harder and harder, so to predict who could end up being Champions in 2050 is nigh on impossible.

Therefore, Football League World has turned to popular AI-based chat site ChatGPT to see who they believe will be the next 25 winners of the division that no one dares to predict.

2025/26 - Coventry City

We're just past the midway point of the current campaign, and despite a dip in form in December, ChatGPT believes that Coventry City will ride it out and gain momentum once again in 2026 en route to a Championship title.

It would bookend an impressive return to the second tier in management for Frank Lampard, who will seemingly have a crack at the Premier League once more, this time with a Sky Blues side who will have ended a 25-year exile from the top flight with this Championship win.

2026/27 - Norwich City

AI must be on the Philippe Clement train, because they believe that the side that has spent the majority of the 2025/26 campaign thus far in the bottom three will wind up with what would be a third Championship title in nine years come May 2027.

Norwich City have always had that spending power, and do have plenty of quality players in the squad currently, despite past transfer flops. With Clement in the dugout, they have a quality manager too.

Whether he's good enough to orchestrate a full-on rebuild from relegation candidates to Championship champions is yet to be seen, but he has the backing of AI in doing so.

2027/28 - Burnley

The Clarets are currently struggling in their first season back in the top flight after securing promotion and another centenary season in back-to-back Championship campaigns.

AI believes that it won't be long until Burnley are back in the second tier, whether they manage to survive this season in the Premier League or not.

Either way, ChatGPT feels that the two-time Championship champions will be adding a third title in a little over two years.

2028/29 - Sunderland

Another current Premier League side comes in next. But unlike Burnley, who are battling relegation currently, last season's Championship play-off final winners, Sunderland, are making a fist of possibly finishing in a European place in their first season back in the top flight.

Despite this, ChatGPT doesn't think that the good times will last for the Black Cats. Whether that's due to the wheels falling off under Regis le Bris or the Frenchman moving on to a traditionally 'bigger' club is still to be found out.

However, as and when a Championship return materialises, the north-east outfit won't be spending too much time before earning promotion back to the Premier League.

2029/30 - Wolverhampton Wanderers

While it's more uncertain as to when Burnley and Sunderland will be making their returns to the Championship, Rob Edwards' Wolves side is seemingly doomed to relegation come May, ending their seven-year stay in the Premier League.

According to AI, the rebuild in the second tier will take a few years, and it won't be until their parachute payments are all used up that they make a return to the Premier League as Championship champions in 2030.

2030/31 - Brentford

Since they last played in the Championship in the 2020/21 campaign, Brentford have established themselves as a respectable mid-table Premier League side, much to the shock of quite a few neutrals.

Even when Thomas Frank left the club and Keith Andrews was put in charge, many expected the Bees to drop off, but it's seemingly gone from strength to strength at the Gtech Community Stadium.

Therefore, a relegation in the near future seems unlikely, but according to AI, not impossible. That being said, a quick bounce back is being predicted in the form of a title win, a decade after securing Premier League promotion for the first time.

2031/32 - Leeds United

Two-time Championship champions Leeds United are predicted to win a third come May 2032 by ChatGPT.

The Whites are battling valiantly under Daniel Farke to remain in the Premier League in their first campaign back after their 100-point title-winning season last year in the second tier. Leeds fans will be hoping that they can kick on if they secure survival, but AI doesn't feel that they will.

But again, as is the case with attractive sides who fall out of the top flight, a return within a few years is inevitable.

2032/33 - Reading

A bit of a surprising flip to the script here, as League One side Reading ends a five-year run of sides currently in the Premier League flexing their muscles and making light work of a Championship return.

Indeed, the Royals haven't graced the top flight since their sole campaign in 2012/13, and have since almost fallen out of existence due to poor ownership under Dai Yongge.

A Premier League return in 2033 would mark an unbelievable comeback story, just eight years on from Yongge's disqualification from the EFL's Owners' and Directors' Test, and they'll be hoping to stay in the top flight for a little longer than they did 20 years prior.

2033/34 - Preston North End

Reading's underdog story the year before may have inspired some of the other perennial EFL clubs, as AI predicts that Preston North End will be the champions of the second tier in 2034, ending what would then be a 73-year stay outside the top flight.

The Lilywhites are dreaming of a potential Premier League campaign next season, though, having found their way into the promotion picture at the halfway point of the current term.

Perhaps this momentum could see Paul Heckingbottom's side become a top second-tier outfit in the coming years, culminating with a title-winning campaign in eight years.

2034/35 - Oxford United

Oxford United's exile out of the top flight isn't as lengthy as the previous season's champions, but the story of the Yellows winning would arguably be greater than Preston's.

Oxford fell out of the Football League for a few years in the 2000s, returning to League Two in 2010. 25 years later on from that, and ChatGPT believes that they'll be gracing the Premier League.

The current focus at the Kassam Stadium is on avoiding relegation back to League One, but if they can do that and continue establishing themselves in the second tier, perhaps they could build themselves up to being promotion contenders and earn a Championship title in 2035.