EFL Championship


The English Football League Championship is the highest division of the English Football League and second-highest overall in the English football league system after the Premier League. The league is contested by 24 clubs. Each season, the two top-finishing teams in the Championship are automatically promoted to the Premier League. The teams that finish the season in 3rd to 6th place enter a playoff tournament, with the winner also gaining promotion to the Premier League. The three lowest-finishing teams in the Championship are relegated to League One.
The Championship, which was introduced for the 2004–05 season, was previously known as the Football League First Division, and before that as the Football League Second Division. The winners of the Championship receive the EFL Championship trophy, the same trophy as the old First Division champions were handed prior to the Premier League's inception in 1992. Similar to other divisions of professional English football, Welsh clubs can be part of the division, making it a cross-border league.
The Championship is the wealthiest non-top flight football division in the world and the ninth richest division in Europe. With an average match attendance for the 2018–19 season of 20,181, the Championship had the highest per-match attendance of any secondary league in the world, with only nine top-flight leagues known to have higher attendance figures.
Barnsley have spent more seasons at the second level of English football than any other team and on 3 January 2011 became the first club to achieve 1,000 wins in the second level of English football with a 2–1 home victory over Coventry City. Barnsley are also the first club to play 3,000 games in second-level league football. At present, Derby County and Nottingham Forest hold the longest tenure in the Championship, last being out of the division in the 2007–08 season.

History

In its inaugural season of 2004–05, the Football League Championship announced a total attendance of 9.8 million, which it said was the fourth highest total attendance for a European football division, behind the FA Premier League, Spain's La Liga and Germany's Bundesliga, but beating Italy's Serie A and France's Ligue 1.
Sunderland won the league in the first season since re-branding, with Wigan Athletic finishing second to win promotion to the top flight of English football for the first time in their history. They had only been elected to the Football League twenty-seven years previously; playing in the fourth tier as recently as eleven years prior to their promotion. West Ham United won the first Championship play-off final that season, following a 1–0 victory over Preston North End at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. In the 2005–06 season, Reading broke the Football League points record for a season, finishing on 106 points, exceeding the record set by Sunderland in 1999.
Sunderland won their second Championship title in three seasons in the 2006–07 season. On 4 May 2007, Leeds United became the first side since the re-branding of the division to enter administration; they were deducted 10 points and were relegated as a result. On 28 May 2007, Derby County won the first Championship play-off final at the new Wembley Stadium, beating West Bromwich Albion 1–0 in front of nearly 75,000 spectators. West Brom would go on to win the Championship in the following season.
On 30 September 2009, Coca-Cola announced they would end their sponsorship deal with The Football League at the end of the 2009–10 season. On 16 March 2010, npower were announced as the new title sponsors of the Football League, and from the start of the 2010–11 Football League season until the end of the 2012–13 season, the Football League Championship was known as the Npower Championship.
On 18 July 2013, UK bookmaker Sky Bet announced that they signed a five-year agreement to sponsor the league.
On 24 May 2014, the Championship play-off final between Derby County and Queens Park Rangers saw the highest crowd for any Championship fixture – 87,348 witnessed a Bobby Zamora stoppage time winner for QPR to win promotion for the London club.
For the 2016–17 season, the Football League was re-branded as the English Football League. The league had an cumulative attendance of more than eleven million – excluding play-off matches – with more than two million watching Newcastle United and Aston Villa home fixtures alone; both of whom had been relegated from the Premier League in the previous season. This was included in the highest crowds for the second to fourth tier in England since the 1958–59 season.

Structure of the league

The league comprises 24 teams. Over the course of a season, which runs annually from August to the following May, each team plays twice against the others in the league, once at 'home' and once 'away', resulting in each team competing in 46 games in total. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. The teams are ranked in the league table by points gained, then goal difference, then goals scored and then their head-to-head record for that season. In the event that two or more teams finish the season equal in all these respects, teams are separated by alphabetical order, unless a promotion, relegation or play-off place is at stake, when the teams are separated by a play-off game, though this improbable situation has never arisen in all the years the rule has existed.
At the end of the season, the top two teams and the winner of the Championship play-offs are promoted to the Premier League and the bottom three teams are relegated to Football League One. The Football League Championship play-offs is a knock-out competition for the teams finishing the season in third to sixth place with the winner being promoted to the Premier League. In the play-offs, the third-placed team plays against the sixth-placed team and the fourth-placed team plays against the fifth-placed team in two-legged semi-finals. The winners of each semi-final then compete in a single match at Wembley stadium with the prize being promotion to the Premier League and the Championship play-off trophy.

Broadcasting rights

UK television

Highlights were broadcast on ITV from 1994 to 2009, firstly on Football League Extra, and later on The Championship from 2004, until the highlights rights were bought by the BBC in 2009.
From 2001 to 2002, live matches were broadcast on ITV Digital, although the company was put into administration in March 2002 and ceased broadcasting after the football season. The broadcast rights were taken over by Sky Sports.
From 2009 to 2012, Sky Sports had the rights to broadcast 65 live matches. Live coverage of both legs of both play-off semi finals and the play-off final are shown live.
Highlights are shown on Quest.

UK radio

hold exclusive national rights to broadcast audio commentary of a selection of Championship matches live to the whole of the United Kingdom; most headline matches are broadcast on either talkSPORT or talkSPORT2. However, BBC Sport does have the rights to broadcast audio commentary for BBC Local Radio in an area with a Championship team.

International

The following 24 clubs competed in the EFL Championship during the 2019–20 season.
ClubFinishing position last seasonLocationStadiumCapacity
Barnsley2nd in League One BarnsleyOakwell23,287
Birmingham City17thBordesleySt Andrew's29,409
Blackburn Rovers15thBlackburnEwood Park31,367
Brentford11thLondon Griffin Park12,763
Bristol City8thBristolAshton Gate27,000
Cardiff City 18th in Premier League CardiffCardiff City Stadium33,316
Charlton Athletic3rd in League One London
The Valley27,111
Derby County6thDerbyPride Park Stadium33,597
Fulham 19th in Premier League London
Craven Cottage19,000
Huddersfield Town 20th in Premier League HuddersfieldKirklees Stadium24,121
Hull City13thKingston upon HullKCOM Stadium25,404
Leeds United3rdLeedsElland Road37,900
Luton Town1st in League One LutonKenilworth Road10,356
Middlesbrough7thMiddlesbroughRiverside Stadium34,742
Millwall21stLondon The Den20,146
Nottingham Forest9thNottinghamCity Ground30,576
Preston North End14thPrestonDeepdale23,408
Queens Park Rangers19thLondon Loftus Road18,360
Reading20thReadingMadejski Stadium24,200
Sheffield Wednesday12thSheffieldHillsborough39,732
Stoke City16thStoke-on-Trentbet365 Stadium30,089
Swansea City10thSwanseaLiberty Stadium21,088
West Bromwich Albion4thWest BromwichThe Hawthorns26,850
Wigan Athletic18thWiganDW Stadium25,133

Results

League champions, runners-up and play-off finalists

SeasonChampionsRunner-upPlay-off winnerscorePlay-off runner-up
2004–05Sunderland 94Wigan Athletic 87West Ham United 73 1–0Preston North End 75
2005–06Reading 106Sheffield United 90Watford 81 3–0Leeds United 78
2006–07Sunderland 88Birmingham City 86Derby County 84 1–0West Bromwich Albion 76
2007–08West Bromwich Albion 81Stoke City 79Hull City 75 1–0Bristol City 74
2008–09Wolverhampton Wanderers 90Birmingham City 83Burnley 76 1–0Sheffield United 80
2009–10Newcastle United 102West Bromwich Albion 91Blackpool 70 3–2Cardiff City 76
2010–11Queens Park Rangers 88Norwich City1 84Swansea City 80 4–2Reading 77
2011–12Reading 89Southampton 88West Ham United 86 2–1Blackpool 75
2012–13Cardiff City 87Hull City 79Crystal Palace 72 1–0 Watford 77
2013–14Leicester City 102Burnley2 93Queens Park Rangers 80 1–0Derby County 85
2014–15Bournemouth 90Watford 89Norwich City 86 2–0Middlesbrough 85
2015–16Burnley 93Middlesbrough 89Hull City 83 1–0Sheffield Wednesday 74
2016–17Newcastle United 94Brighton & Hove Albion 93Huddersfield Town 81 0–0 Reading 85
2017–18Wolverhampton Wanderers 99Cardiff City 90Fulham 88 1–0Aston Villa 83
2018–19Norwich City 94Sheffield United 89Aston Villa 76 2–1Derby County 74
2019–20Leeds United 93West Bromwich Albion 83


Relegated teams (from Championship to League One)

Relegated teams (from Premier League to Championship)

Promoted teams (from League One to Championship)

Top scorers