The English Football League Championship is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the English football league system, sitting below the Premier League and contested by 24 professional clubs from England and Wales.
In its present form, the Championship traces its legacy to the original Football League Second Division, which became the First Division in 1992 when the top flight of English football was reorganised as the Premier League. The current competition was intended for the 2004–05 season as the Football League Championship as a rebrand of the First Division. The winning club of this division each season receives the EFL Championship trophy, which was the previous trophy awarded to the winners of the English top-flight prior to the launch of the Premier League. As with other divisions of professional English football, Welsh clubs can be part of this division, thus making it a cross-border league.
Each season, the two top-finishing teams in the Championship are automatically promoted to the Premier League. Up until the 2025/26 season the teams that finished the season in third to sixth place entered a play-off tournament, with the winner gaining promotion to the Premier League. From the 2026/27 season the playoffs also include the teams finishing in seventh and eighth place. The three lowest-finishing teams in the Championship are relegated to League One.
The Championship is the wealthiest non-top-flight football division in the world, the ninth-richest division in Europe, and the 12th best-attended division in world football (with the second highest per-match attendance of any secondary league – after the German 2. Bundesliga).A referenced list of all leagues ranking above the Championship is available at the Major League Soccer attendance page. Its average match attendance for the 2022–23 season was 18,787.
Cardiff City have spent more seasons in this division than any other team, and Bristol City, Preston North End and Queens Park Rangers currently hold the longest tenure in this division, having last been absent in the 2014–15 season. Barnsley became the first club to attain 1,000 wins in second-tier English league football with a 2–1 home victory over Coventry City on 3 January 2011. They also became the first club to play 3,000 games in second-level English league football following another 2–1 home victory, this time against Brighton & Hove Albion on 12 March 2013. The current champions of the league are Coventry City.
History
Sunderland won the league in the first season since rebranding, 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 in 1978 playing in the fourth tier as recently as 1994 before 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. The 2004–05 season saw the division announce a total attendance (including postseason) of 9.8 million, the fourth-highest total attendance for a European football division, behind the Premier League (12.88 million), Spain's La Liga (11.57 million) and Germany's Bundesliga (10.92 million). TheFA.com Additionally, Millwall, competing in the inaugural Championship season, qualified for the UEFA Cup, only to lose in the first round. In the 2005–06 season, Reading broke the Football League points record for a season, finishing with 106 points, exceeding the record of 105 set by Sunderland in 1998–99.
Sunderland won their second Championship title in the 2006–07 season, after being relegated from the top division the previous 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. West Brom would go on to win the Championship in the following season.
Burnley, who finished fifth in 2009, defeated Sheffield United to earn their first season in the newly branded Premier League, last being in the Football League First Division in 1976.
Crystal Palace became the second Championship club to enter administration in 2010.
After winning the 2011 League Cup final, Birmingham City became the first Championship club to compete in the group stage of the UEFA Cup/Europa League, finishing third in the group, only one point behind Portuguese club Braga. Birmingham City eventually finished fourth in the Championship that season, and would lose to fifth-place Blackpool in the play-off. Wigan Athletic became the second club to participate in the Europa League group stage after winning the 2013 FA Cup, only to accumulate one win and lose their last three group matches.
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 rebranded as the English Football League. The league had a cumulative attendance of more than 11 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. Newcastle won the title in 2016–17, while Aston Villa finished 13th, eventually returning to the Premier League in 2019.
On 13 March 2020, Championship play was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a suspension lasting until 4 April. It was then extended to the end of April, with the league eventually restarting on 20 June. Leeds United were confirmed as champions on 17 July 2020, being promoted to the Premier League for the first time in 16 years.
Brentford, having been in League Two in 2009 and gaining promotion to the Championship five years later, were promoted following a play-off victory against Swansea City on 29 May 2021, after losing the play-off to Fulham the previous year. On 29 May 2022, Nottingham Forest, having been in the Championship for 14 consecutive seasons, ended their 23-year absence from the top flight by beating Huddersfield Town in the play-off final, after being last in the league as late as round 8 of the 2021–22 season.
The EFL Championship took a unique four-week break in November and December 2022 to allow for players to join their national teams at the 2022 FIFA World Cup held in Qatar.
On 30 July 2026, Premier League clubs unanimously approved a proposed 10-year strategic partnership with the EFL, reportedly worth £1.5 billion. The Premier League also stated it already invests £1.6 billion every three years into the wider game and communities.
League structure The league comprises 24 teams. Over the course of a season, which runs annually from August to the following May (in 2022, the year of a World Cup break in November and December, the league started in July), 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 (including away goals record). If two or more teams finish the season equal in all these respects, then teams are separated by alphabetical order, unless a promotion, relegation, or play-off place (see below) 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.
Clubs
Current members
TeamLocationStadiumCapacity Birmingham City Birmingham St Andrew's 29,409 Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Ewood Park 31,367 Bolton Wanderers Bolton Toughsheet Community Stadium 28,723 Bristol City Bristol Ashton Gate 26,462 Burnley Burnley Turf Moor 21,990 Cardiff City Cardiff Cardiff City Stadium 33,280 Charlton Athletic London The Valley 27,111 Derby County Derby Pride Park Stadium 33,597 Lincoln City Lincoln Sincil Bank 10,669 Middlesbrough Middlesbrough Riverside Stadium34,742 Millwall London The Den 20,146 Norwich City Norwich Carrow Road 27,359 Portsmouth Portsmouth Fratton Park 20,867 Preston North End Preston Deepdale 23,408 Queens Park Rangers London Loftus Road 18,439 Sheffield United Sheffield Bramall Lane 32,050 Southampton Southampton St Mary's Stadium32,384 Stoke City Stoke-on-Trent bet365 Stadium 30,089 Swansea City Swansea Swansea.com Stadium 21,088 Watford Watford Vicarage Road 22,200 West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich The Hawthorns 26,850 West Ham United London London Stadium 62,500 Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Molineux Stadium 31,750 Wrexham Wrexham Racecourse Ground 10,771
Seasons in English second tier There are 106 teams that have taken part in 123 English second tier seasons (including the Football League Second Division, the Football League First Division, and the EFL Championship) that were played from the 1892–93 season until the 2026–27 season. The teams in bold compete in the EFL Championship currently, while the teams in italics have never competed in the EFL Championship. The year in parentheses represents the most recent year of participation at this level.
78 seasons: Barnsley (2022) 65 seasons: Hull City (2026) 64 seasons: Leicester City (2026) 62 seasons: Birmingham City (2027) 59 seasons: Bristol City (2027) 58 seasons: Nottingham Forest (2022) 57 seasons: Derby County (2027) 56 seasons: Fulham (2022) 54 seasons: Middlesbrough (2027), Preston North End (2027) 53 seasons: Cardiff City (2027) 52 seasons: Grimsby Town (2003), Blackpool (2023) 51 seasons: Wolverhampton Wanderers (2027) 50 seasons: Blackburn Rovers (2027), Millwall (2027), Stoke City (2027) 49 seasons: Burnley (2027), Sheffield United (2027) 48 seasons: Charlton Athletic (2027) 46 seasons: Sheffield Wednesday (2026), Swansea City (2027) 45 seasons: West Bromwich Albion (2027) 44 seasons: Norwich City (2027) 43 seasons: Huddersfield Town (2024), Portsmouth (2027) 42 seasons: Leeds United (2025), Plymouth Argyle (2025) 41 seasons: Leyton Orient (1982), Port Vale (2000), Southampton (2027) 39 seasons: Bury (1999), Luton Town (2025), Ipswich Town (2026) 38 seasons: Queens Park Rangers (2027) 37 seasons: Notts County (1995), Crystal Palace (2013) 36 seasons: Oldham Athletic (1997) 35 seasons: Coventry City (2026), Bolton Wanderers (2027), Lincoln City (2027), Watford (2027) 33 seasons: Sunderland (2025), West Ham United (2027) 30 seasons: Rotherham United (2024) 29 seasons: Bradford City (2004), Reading (2023) 28 seasons: Newcastle United (2017) 26 seasons: Stockport County (2002) 25 seasons: Manchester City (2002) 24 seasons: Brighton & Hove Albion (2017) 22 seasons: Bradford (Park Avenue) (1950), Manchester United (1975) 20 seasons: Chesterfield (1951), Oxford United (2026) 19 seasons: Chelsea (1989), Bristol Rovers (1993), Doncaster Rovers (2014) 18 seasons: Swindon Town (2000) 17 seasons: Brentford (2021) 16 seasons: Gainsborough Trinity (1912), Glossop North End (1915), Tottenham Hotspur (1978) 15 seasons: Carlisle United (1986), Walsall (2004) 13 seasons: Arsenal (1915), Aston Villa (2019) 12 seasons: Crewe Alexandra (2006) 11 seasons: Liverpool (1962), Tranmere Rovers (2001) 10 seasons: Leeds City (1915), Shrewsbury Town (1989) 9 seasons: Burton Swifts (1901), Gateshead (1928), Scunthorpe United (2011) 8 seasons: Cambridge United (1993), Wigan Athletic (2023) 7 seasons: Southend United (2007), Bournemouth (2022)