[St Charles Owl]

The purist in me and 50 years of watching football tells me to agree with you, but the reality of today’s game makes me disagree. Football, like just about every major sport is about money, with the disparity between the PL and Championship the most glaring hole in that money. This move means that 10-12 teams will have something to play for in the final 3 months of the season, that means more revenue through crowds, commercial activities, merchandise, TV money etc plus the revenue from the extra 2 games it creates. This makes a small dent in the gap between the divisions, potentially secures some Championship clubs for the following season and allows more teams to better compete with the clubs coming down with parachute payments.

Aside from the money, the playoffs are exciting, the chance of reaching them towards the end of the season is exciting and current stats show that the teams in 3rd or 4th get promoted nearly 70% of the time with 3rd spot doing it nearly half the time alone. As regards the promoted teams surviving in the PL, history is starting to show that is something that it seems no club irrespective of their position can do for very long.

This isn’t a perfect solution but we have seen with the new TV deal and now this it seems the EFL is trying to maximize its potential revenues to give clubs a chance of competing both in the PL and the Championship season after season.