The 2025/26 Sky Bet Championship season is complete, with Coventry City and Ipswich Town securing automatic promotion to the Premier League.
The Championship playoff final is still to come, with Hull City and Southampton both bidding to return to the Premier League.
Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton all dropped down from the Premier League and it’s possible that two of those sides could go straight back up. Leicester didn’t enjoy a good season, dropping straight down to League One after suffering back-to-back relegations.
The likes of Middlesbrough, Coventry, West Brom, Norwich, Stoke, Watford, Blackburn, Swansea and Hull City have all tasted Premier League football in the past.
For those not in the know, perhaps new to football, the promotion system in England allows three teams from the Championship to be promoted to the Premier League at the end of each season. This is to the detriment of the bottom three teams in the top flight, moving down to the Championship level.
The top two teams in the Championship automatically qualify for promotion, making those spots some of the most lucrative in football. The third team worthy of promotion is then decided by a play-off, with the teams finishing third to sixth entering a tournament. Across two two-legged semi-finals and a final at Wembley – dubbed the richest game in football – the winner is then promoted to the Premier League.
So who are the favourites to win the league this time around?
2025-26 Championship playoff winner odds
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