Two more teams to join the Premier League promotion play-offs next season | OneFootball

The playoffs for promotion to the Premier League will be contested by six teams, instead of four as currently, starting from the 2026/2027 season, confirmed the English Football League (EFL), organizer of the English second division, this Thursday (5).

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The reform approved this Thursday maintains automatic promotion to the Premier League for the champion and runner-up of the Championship.

But with the new format, the teams finishing the regular season in seventh and eighth places will be able to compete in the promotion playoffs.

Until now, this end-of-season tournament was contested by the teams finishing in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth places.

From now on, the third and fourth-placed teams in the table will qualify directly for the semifinals, which will continue to be played in home-and-away matches.

These semifinals will be completed with the two winners of the preliminary phase, with the fifth-placed team (at home) facing the eighth and the sixth-placed team (at home) facing the seventh.

This playoff system was implemented in the 1989/1990 season, and the final is held every year at the end of May at Wembley Stadium.

This match at the cathedral of English football is considered the most lucrative in the world, due to the enormous amounts of money that Premier League clubs receive, mainly from television broadcasting rights.

Sunderland's victory over Sheffield United in the last edition earned the club an estimated value of at least £200 million (around R$ 1.4 billion at the current exchange rate) in additional revenue for the 'Black Cats'.

* With content from AFP.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.