EFL expands Championship play-offs to six teams for 2026-27 season
The English Football League has extended the Championship play-offs to include six teams for the 2026-27 campaign, a decision announced in March and discussed at the 2026-27 EFL season launch in Manchester.
Under the revised format, clubs finishing seventh and eighth will qualify for the play-offs alongside the traditional third to sixth positions, reversing a system in place since 1989 that limited the post-season to third through sixth. Hull City's recent success as a sixth-placed side was only the seventh occasion a team in that position has achieved promotion, and Derby County, Millwall (twice), Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers are among those to have gained promotion from sixth.
Competition structure has been set: third and fourth places progress straight to two-legged semi-finals, while a one-legged quarter-final will see fifth host eighth and sixth host seventh; the semi-finals will remain two-legged and the final will be held at Wembley at the end of May. The EFL said the aim of the change was to "increase the number of competitive fixtures during the closing stages of the season" and the new format will be used when the campaign gets under way on Friday.
Recent seasons were cited as examples of how the tweak could alter late-season dynamics. Last term three teams entered the final day vying for sixth with the top eight already decided; Wrexham finished seventh and Derby eighth. On the last weekend of the 2024-25 season five sides had a shot at the final two play-off berths but only ninth-placed Middlesbrough would have been able to break into the top eight under the new rules, and applying the regulation to 2023-24 would have given ninth-placed Coventry City a chance to overhaul eighth-placed Middlesbrough.
Historical context and odds were also highlighted: since the play-offs were narrowed in 1989 the team finishing sixth has been promoted just seven times, three of the first six promoted sixth-placed sides (Crystal Palace twice and Blackpool) were immediately relegated, and Hull were the first sixth-placed side to go up for 16 years. Prior to this change the lowest play-off berth in the Football League was in League Two, where seventh was enough, and the seventh-placed side in play-offs overall has succeeded seven times from 38 attempts; Championship clubs will now also face an extra one-off quarter-final match.
Voices for and against the expansion were recorded at the EFL launch and elsewhere. Lyle Taylor, a play-off winner with Nottingham Forest, Charlton Athletic and AFC Wimbledon, said: "If you're talking about going down to eighth, you could have a team with 10 or 11 fewer wins than the one finishing third. Are you therefore deserving of being in the same post-season competition as that team? No, this is a meritocracy isn't it?" Former Huddersfield Town play-off winner Tommy Smith added: "I get that it gives more teams a chance to compete, but I can't help feeling some of the teams who end up competing could have a chance of getting to the Premier League over a team which finishes third and amasses an enormous amount of points. I think back to Sheffield United just missing out on the automatics and then losing to Sunderland in the play-off final (having finished 14 points ahead of them in 2024-25). I don't know how that sits with me, a team finishing eighth could be in the Premier League over a team finishing third."
Other figures welcomed the wider field. Derby striker Rhian Brewster said: "It will be good as some teams will have slow starts and kick on and could have a chance of getting in the play-offs this year and going up. It is going to be harder but you could be near the bottom and go on a run and finish eighth or seventh. You want to finish first or second, but if you end up in the play-offs then win the play-offs." Kyle Walker said: "I think it's good, more chances for more people, but first of all you don't want to be involved in the play-offs. I've been involved in it and it's a roulette, anything can happen. Make sure you make a gap between first, second and let the rest deal with it themselves." Blackburn manager Tony Mowbray commented: "I think it's good and keeps the dreams alive for fans and a lot of football teams. You could be sitting 10th, 12th or 14th but still be three points off the top eight and two wins back-to-back and you can catapult yourselves in. People have to dream, they have to have a reason why they want to go and believe they can still do it. For me, it's only positive. The argument is you could have a team finishing eighth and getting promoted, but good luck to them. Sunderland when they scraped through the play-offs [in 2025], Coventry in the semi-finals over two legs were the better team but Dan Ballard got them through with a header right at the death. Then, at Wembley, Sheffield United might have been the better team over 90 minutes and they [Sunderland] got there. Then they spent £180m and are now playing in Europe so it can happen to any team." Portsmouth boss John Mousinho expressed reservations as well, saying: "It depends whether it dilutes it too much and, all of a sudden, the side that finishes eighth and maybe is a long way off the side that finishes third ultimately gets a chance to go into the Premier League and what knock-on affect that has. It'll be very interesting to see if and when that does happen." He had also said earlier: "I thought the system worked pretty well previously - I think we'll have to see how it pans out. I didn't think there was an issue but we'll see how it goes. I think since the introduction of the play-off system, it's been wildly successful."
The EFL's change will affect one third of the Championship in terms of perceived success—automatic promotion, play-off promotion, a Wembley appearance or a top-eight finish—and may add pressure on managers and owners after a season that saw 13 managerial changes in the division. The new six-team play-off arrangement will be applied when the 2026-27 Championship season begins on Friday, providing the first practical test of how those expanded post-season places influence results and club strategies.
