How many games in the Championship?

Is there another name for the Championship?

We bet any football fan all over the world knows this football tournament, but not all of them are aware of its substitution names. The Championship is actually the English Football League (EFL) Championship or the Sky Bet Championship based on the sponsor company’s name. 

This football competition is known as the highest division of the EFL, but the second one in the English football league system overall, after the Premier League. The Championship was officially founded in the 2004-2005 season, but it was established a long time ago as the Football League First Division from 1992 to 2004, and Football League Second Division from 1892 to 1992. 

Sky Bet Championship

What is the format of the Championship?

How the Championship works is also what people care about. When you understand the operation of a tournament, you will know what is going on and what is waiting for you ahead of. The format of the Championship is pretty straightforward because it’s simply a round-robin tournament with 24 clubs participating in.

What does round-robin mean?

Each team will meet the rest of the contestants twice. Once will be played at their home ground, and once away. There will be no separation into groups like the two biggest games, the Champions League or Europa League, every team will have to compete with all the other teams in the whole competition.  

How to decide the winner

The contestants will be ranked based on their aggregate points after the competition. Three points are awarded to the winning team of each match, one point for both teams when it comes to a draw, and zero for a loss. 

In case there appear some tied teams, they will have to go with several tie-breaker criteria, such as goal difference, goals scored, head-to-head record, then a series of play-off fixtures. 

What happens with the winner?

The winner and runner-up of the Championship will be automatically passed into the Premier League. The last slot is for the winner of the Championship play-offs. Meanwhile, the three teams ranked at the bottom will be handed over to League One. All of these things are called Promotion and Relegation.   

How many games in the Championship?

The short answer is 552 games. So, where is this number from? 

As you know, the Championship consists of 24 clubs playing two-legged ties with each other. Therefore, each team will have to meet the other 23 teams and compete twice with each of them. That means there are 46 matches every club will participate in. 

According to this principle, there should be 46×24=1104 matches in total. However, this number is doubled because when team A meets team B, it’s similar to team B meets team A, and so on. So the last answer is 1104/2= 552 games in the Championship, not including the play-off matches if there are some. 552 games will be divided into 46 match days, with 12 matches in each.  

2020-2021 Championship standings

The Championship this season is around the corner with only two months left before we know the champion. Let’s take a look at the top 10 clubs currently. 

According to that, Norwich City is leading the game with 76 points and has won five last matches consecutively. The second-placed team is Watford with 10 points difference from the first. It’s not a huge distance and there are numerous matches ahead, so we cannot say anything too soon. 

You can also refer to the table below to get more details about the current standings of 24 teams in the 2020-2021 Championship.

Norwich City FC

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFL_Championship