{"id":295451,"date":"2025-12-02T20:15:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/295451\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T20:15:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:15:23","slug":"championship-salford-red-devils-set-to-play-opener-in-new-expanded-league-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/295451\/","title":{"rendered":"Championship: Salford Red Devils set to play opener in new expanded league"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Championship will be contested over 24 rounds in the regular season. Ten of the fixtures will be based on 2025 league positions and two opponents will be based on geographical location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For example, all three Cumbria clubs in the league &#8211; Barrow Raiders, Workington Town and Whitehaven will all play each other home and away, while, just like in Super League, a rivals round is set for Good Friday (3 April).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A play-off series involving the top 10 sides will then be staged in September, ahead of the Championship Grand Final on Sunday, 4 October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The exciting new structure ensures every single game will have meaning and, it is pleasing to see the return of many old rivalries, plus some intriguing stardust from new club ownership groups,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugby-league.com\/article\/64423\/2026-betfred-championship-fixtures-confirmed-\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said, external<\/a> the RFL&#8217;s interim CEO Abi Ekoku. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Championship will be contested over 24 rounds in the regular season. Ten of the fixtures will be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-295451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}