Championship 2026/27 (M)

In 1892, with the Football Alliance dissolved, the Football League opened a second tier to house the clubs left outside: the Second Division was born. That basement has been renamed twice, and both times by decisions taken above it. In 1992, when the big clubs walked out to found the Premier League, it became the First Division — the elite's own name, inherited by precisely those who no longer were. In 2004 it took the name Championship, and in 2016, when the Football League rebranded as the EFL, the one it carries today.

One club owns the roll of honour: Leicester City, with eight second-tier titles between 1925 and 2024, more than anybody else. The points record belongs to Reading, 106 in 2005/06, two clear of the 105 Sunderland managed in 1998/99. The division's attendance record still stands from the 2014 play-off final at Wembley, Derby County 0-1 QPR, watched by 87,348. In 2025/26, 12,208,071 people came through the turnstiles, an average of 22,116 a match: no second tier on earth fills up more, bar Germany's 2. Bundesliga.

The 2026/27 field explains what the division is made of. Eight of its twenty-four clubs have been champions of England, sixteen titles between them: Wolverhampton Wanderers in the fifties (1954, 1958 and 1959), Blackburn Rovers in 1912, 1914 and 1995, Brian Clough's Derby County in 1972 and 1975, Burnley in 1921 and 1960, Portsmouth in 1949 and 1950, Preston North End in the first two league seasons ever played (1889 and 1890), Sheffield United in 1898 and West Bromwich Albion in 1920.

Frank Lampard's Coventry City closed 2025/26 on 95 points, eleven clear of second place, and with their first title since the division took the name Championship. They were also the highest scorers, with 97 goals, and the meanest defence, with 45 conceded — a double that almost never falls to the same side. Promotion was sealed on 17 April 2026 with a 1-1 draw at Ewood Park against Blackburn Rovers, and the trophy came four days later after a 5-1 thrashing of Portsmouth. Ipswich Town joined them on the final day with 84 points, one more than a Millwall side left third and empty-handed.

The rest unravelled in a way nothing had prepared anyone for. On 7 May, a Southampton analyst on work placement was caught hiding behind a tree at Rockliffe Park, filming a Middlesbrough training session on the eve of their semi-final. The club admitted three episodes — Oxford United in December and Ipswich in April as well — against the EFL rule that forbids watching another club train within 72 hours of a match. On 19 May an independent disciplinary commission threw them out of a tie they had already won on the pitch, 2-1 after extra time, and Middlesbrough took their place.

At Wembley on 23 May, 84,506 spectators watched Oli McBurnie score in the 95th minute for the 1-0 that returned Hull City to the Premier League after nine years away. Down went Oxford United on 47 points, Leicester City on 46 — ten years after winning the Premier League — and a Sheffield Wednesday side that finished on nothing at all: 18 points earned, 18 deducted after entering administration. Their relegation was confirmed on 22 February with thirteen games still to play, the earliest in EFL history.

Three clubs come down from the Premier League with the wound still open and parachute payments to cushion it. Wolverhampton Wanderers finished twentieth on 20 points and Burnley nineteenth on 22; West Ham United, by contrast, fell on the final day, beating Leeds 3-0 and going down anyway on 39 points because Tottenham beat Everton. Two of the three meet almost immediately: Burnley host West Ham on Sunday 16 August, in the opening round.

Up from League One come one emphatic champion and two returns. Lincoln City went up on 103 points and Cardiff City on 91; Bolton Wanderers took the hard road, beating Stockport County 4-1 at Wembley on 24 May. The gap in scale inside a single division is visible at a glance: Lincoln play in the smallest ground in the league, 10,669 seats, while West Ham host at the London Stadium.

Southampton start in the red. The four-point deduction from the spying case applies to this season and their appeal was dismissed with no further recourse, so their first task is simply to reach zero. And Wrexham are no longer a television curiosity: the first club in English football since 1888 to string together three straight promotions — the National League in 2022/23, League Two in 2023/24 and League One in 2024/25 — they finished seventh on 71 points in their first season at this level. The opening round closes in Wales with Cardiff against Wrexham, on Monday 17 August.

Forty-six rounds for two automatic places. That part does not move: champions and runners-up go up to the Premier League with nothing else to play, and the bottom three drop into League One. What does change, and changes this very season, is the third place. On 5 March 2026 the clubs voted to widen the play-offs from four teams to six, so the net now stretches from third to eighth.

The mechanism gains a new round. Seventh and eighth travel to sixth and fifth for single-leg ties — 5 v 8 and 6 v 7, hosted by the higher finisher — and the two survivors meet third and fourth over two legs, with the return again at the better-placed club. Whoever comes through all that goes to Wembley for one match. The detail that reframes the whole season: Wrexham, seventh last time out, missed the cut by one place under a system that no longer exists.

That Wembley final has a price tag attached. According to Deloitte's Sports Business Group, the winner of the 2026 edition stood to bank at least £205m in extra revenue across three seasons, a figure rising above £365m if the club survives its first year in the Premier League. No other football match moves that kind of money. And getting to May in one piece is part of the exam: 13 of the 46 rounds fall midweek, every side plays three matches in the seven days between 26 December and 1 January, and on 1 May 2027 all twelve final-round fixtures kick off at the same moment.