EFL to vote on extending the Championship playoffs

[badgerx16]

Not sure if mentioned already somewhere

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c9dnll5gp1go

[Jack]

Absolute nonsense. If you finish outside of the top 6 after a 46 game season, you’ve got no business thinking about being in the division above. 

[benjii]

Seems unnecessary.

[Baird of the land]

Basically it’s the American football Wildcard round.

 

[SNSUN]

I can't see anything wrong with the system as it is. Just seems like a way for someone to make more money because of more fixtures. Someone is going to get slaughtered in the Prem, such is the gap. 

If we finish 7th this year, despite trying we probably don't deserve to be in the play offs. Under the new rules, we'd have a chance. When does it end? Top ten? Top half? Play off between a Championship team and the Premier League's 17th team? 

And yet, I wouldn't be surprised to see it voted in.

[sockeye]

I'd sooner see a relegation play-off.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

I'm all for a trial run this season, extending right down to wherever we finish. Then dump it for future seasons (unless we're outside the top 6 again). 🙂

I don't think I was in favour of the play-offs in the first place. Get promoted, on merit, in third!

[bpsaint]

I’m on the border of disliking the current format, let alone the idea of adding more teams into the fix. Just piss off and leave it be.

[Dark Munster]

It's a load of bollocks. Unless we finish 8th next season, in which case I'm all for it.

No seriously, keep it as is with 3 to 6 in the playoffs, but reward the higher finishers by having 5th at home to 6th in a one match eliminator (extra time and penalties if necessary). Winner plays similar one-off away in next round against 4th, and winner of that plays 3rd at Wembley.

Simples. Won't happen of course, far too logical and fair.

[trousers]

Here's a radical idea... How about the best 3 teams over 46 matches get promoted...?

#callmeoldfashioned

[BarberSaint]

Twats 

(EFL)

Presume they're jumping on the Infanto 'if it's not a cow, milk it anyway' bandwagon.

[Gloucester Saint]

13 hours ago, Jack said:

Absolute nonsense. If you finish outside of the top 6 after a 46 game season, you’ve got no business thinking about being in the division above. 

It’s looking more like the National League system.

And don’t even get me started on the lack of three up three down between that and League 2.

[VectisSaint]

11 hours ago, trousers said:

Here's a radical idea... How about the best 3 teams over 46 matches get promoted...?

#callmeoldfashioned

We should go back to 2-up, 2-down, and implement it retrospectively since it was changed in 1974

[S-Clarke]

I heard about this last year, it was a pointless suggestion then. So count me not surprised that they've pushed ahead with this pointless suggestion. I'd imagine this format has been heavily pushed by the American owned clubs. 

Edited Thursday at 11:22 by S-Clarke

[Hamwic]

Play-offs have nothing to do with clubs, players fans. They are all about money. The old system was fair and rewarde merit. Bottom 3 down, top 3 up.

[RedArmy]

The gap between the top 2 and 6th is already widening massively, extending that down to 8th is just crazy. 
 

Look at last years table, how could anybody justify Millwall who finished 34 points off automatic promotion being given a second bite of the cherry? 

[Baird of the land]

7 minutes ago, Hamwic said:

Play-offs have nothing to do with clubs, players fans. They are all about money. The old system was fair and rewarde merit. Bottom 3 down, top 3 up.

I like that the playoffs keep the division alive longer. If they weren't there at all there'd be an even bigger mass of teams with nothing to play for. I just think this takes a good thing too far.

[Turkish]

17 hours ago, sockeye said:

I'd sooner see a relegation play-off.

Remember they tried that in the 80s. 3rd bottom of the First divison as it was then played 3rd in the 2nd. Remember one game Chelsea v Middlesborough it was absolute carnage with the fans. It'd be exciting for the neutrals but not sure police would be too happy about it.

[Kenilworthy1959]

We also need to reduce the number of teams in the Championship. 24 is far too many. We should have 20 teams in PL, 20 in Championship, 22 in League One, 22 in League Two and create a League Three of 22 teams bringing in the top teams from the National League. With play-offs scrapped completely. It is often forgotten that play-offs were only introduced in 1986/87 as a temporary measure to reduce the old First Division down to 20 clubs. Although in no time it was back up to 22. It was then decided that the play offs were so popular, although no supporters were asked, that they should be permanent.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Play offs hand been a good thing for the league. Clearly the fairest way is top 3 go up, but you’ll end up with a whole load of clubs playing out meaningless games from about Feb, particularly if you’re docking teams at the bottom even more points. What’s there to play for this season , 2 relegation places & 3rd place. 

[Saint86]

13 hours ago, trousers said:

Here's a radical idea... How about the best 3 teams over 46 matches get promoted...?

#callmeoldfashioned

I would say that any teams within 3points of the last automatic spot have to duke it out.... Remove a bit of certainty / make it exciting every year 😅

[Chez]

fuck me, why does every football authority do its utter best to fuck up football just for the sake of a few more quid? When will these cunts realise that their job is to preserve the qualities of the game not maximise revenue?

[so22saint]

fuck it, why don't they have have a play-off between the relegated PL team and the winner of the winner of the playoffs of Champ, L1 and L2 🤣

[gecko]

nice to see i'm not the only one that thinks the guy in third should probably take the third promotion place.

That said, the playoffs as a spectacle is pretty awesome when you're the one that wins it.

What's particularly frustrating about this suggestion, is I can see several really interesting alternative ideas listed in this thread that are either more exciting, or more fair than simply adding a few extra teams who were, by all accounts, nowhere near good enough over the whole season. And I'd wager it's taken you lot 5 minutes to come up with these ideas.

Edited Thursday at 14:26 by gecko

[NewYorkSaint]

I kinda like it.  gives 3 and 4 a significant advantage over 5-8, which they prob deserve.  5 and 6 still get the benefit of playing at home...    I remember thinking while at Wembley on that magic day that the playoff winner had a far BETTER season than those automatically promoted....     More broadly, it's good to give more clubs more to play for for longer into the season.  If it were just top 3, hope dies early for many.   But this is quite a clever system, giving graduated advantage the higher you place.... but still giving hope to a lot of clubs. In fact most clubs for most of the season can have a pathway to finishing at least 8th.   So yeah... I'd vote for this.

Quote

 

 

[Kenilworthy1959]

1 hour ago, NewYorkSaint said:

I kinda like it.  gives 3 and 4 a significant advantage over 5-8, which they prob deserve.  5 and 6 still get the benefit of playing at home...    I remember thinking while at Wembley on that magic day that the playoff winner had a far BETTER season than those automatically promoted....     More broadly, it's good to give more clubs more to play for for longer into the season.  If it were just top 3, hope dies early for many.   But this is quite a clever system, giving graduated advantage the higher you place.... but still giving hope to a lot of clubs. In fact most clubs for most of the season can have a pathway to finishing at least 8th.   So yeah... I'd vote for this.

 

Its a good point that the Wembley final does kind of reward a team that didn't achieve automatic promotion. It would be better to go back to a two-leg home and away final, which was what they had up until about 1990.

[Osvaldorama]

Awful, awful idea. So I assume it will happen. 

[RedArmy]

4 hours ago, RedArmy said:

The gap between the top 2 and 6th is already widening massively, extending that down to 8th is just crazy. 
 

Look at last years table, how could anybody justify Millwall who finished 34 points off automatic promotion being given a second bite of the cherry? 

I got ChatGPT to compile the numbers for me. 
 

Average point differential between 2nd and 3rd, 2nd and 6th & 2nd and 8th over the last 10 seasons. 
 

2nd > 3rd 6.3 points 

2nd > 6th 15.4 points 

2nd > 8th 19.1 points. 
 

And the average finishing position of the playoff winner was 3.8. 
 

Just get rid of the playoffs or have a 1 game final between 3rd and 4th. 
 

 

[die Mannyschaft]

It will help fans of teams that cant buy the league or spend big to garantee a top six place.

Also just imagine if Saints continued its policy for boring sideways, back passing for next 5 seasons, we would not have much to cheer about. Unless we had a lot of 3-4 comebacks. 

[Badger]

5 hours ago, Chez said:

fuck me, why does every football authority do its utter best to fuck up football just for the sake of a few more quid? When will these cunts realise that their job is to preserve the qualities of the game not maximise revenue?

Killing the golden goose springs to mind 

[Badger]

There are 46 games in the league, but that isn’t enough to place and reward the teams in some order of merit. So have a qualifying match, plus possibly a home and away semi-final (three more matches).

Add a final at Wembley, and that’s a total of 50 matches to decide the last promotion place. No longer a league but the longest running cup competition out there.

[die Mannyschaft]

It will help fans of teams that cant buy the league or spend big to garantee a top six place.

Also just imagine if Saints continued its policy for boring sideways, back passing for next 5 seasons, we would not have much to cheer about. Unless we had a lot of 3-4 comebacks. 

How about a relegation playoff for bottom 6!!

[Gloucester Saint]

On 12/02/2026 at 12:21, Turkish said:

Remember they tried that in the 80s. 3rd bottom of the First divison as it was then played 3rd in the 2nd. Remember one game Chelsea v Middlesborough it was absolute carnage with the fans. It'd be exciting for the neutrals but not sure police would be too happy about it.

 

[Saint86]

On 12/02/2026 at 17:12, RedArmy said:

And the average finishing position of the playoff winner was 3.8. 

Fancy we're going to screw with that a bit this season 😏

[Charlie Wayman]

Two up and two down worked perfectly for years without all this pay-off nonsense and nodody then thought it boring or lacking competition. In fact quite the opposite, everyone was in it to win it. In the old 3rd South and 3rd North only one team was promoted IIRC.

Already, too many poor teams are promoted from all divisions these days and the yo-yo phenomenon has emerged. The proposed new system is likely to exacerbate this and could lead to a decline in quality across the leagues. LCD and all that!

[JCBSaint]

I have a simpler version, 3rd place team are in the final , home dressing room, home kit blah giving them the advantage of more time to prepare, 4th plays 5th, playing a one off game with home advantage to the 4th placed team. Nice and simple.