{"id":330261,"date":"2026-03-05T12:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330261\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:40:07","slug":"championship-play-offs-efl-clubs-vote-in-favour-of-six-team-play-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330261\/","title":{"rendered":"Championship play-offs: EFL clubs vote in favour of six-team play-off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">EFL clubs have voted in favour of expanding the Championship play-offs from four to six teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The new system is similar to the format used in the National League and will be introduced for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It means teams finishing from third to eighth will compete for promotion to the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Clubs finishing third and fourth will progress directly to the semi-final, while a one-legged quarter final will be played with fifth at home to eighth and sixth hosting seventh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Semi-finals will remain as two legs and the final will still take place at Wembley at the end of May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There are currently no plans in place to expand the play-offs in League One or League Two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The proposal has been under consideration for a number of seasons and was approved by the EFL board and Football Association.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The decision is intended to increase the number of competitive fixtures during the closing stages of the campaign, while also giving two additional clubs the opportunity to reach the play-off final at Wembley Stadium and progress to the Premier League,&#8221; the EFL said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EFL clubs have voted in favour of expanding the Championship play-offs from four to six teams. The new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-330261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}