The Championship season begins on Friday night, when Wolverhampton Wanderers host Blackburn Rovers, and it begins under a format the second tier has never used. Six clubs will contest the play-offs rather than four, and the qualifying places now run from third to eighth.
How it works
The top two still go up automatically and nothing about that changes. Third and fourth go straight into the semi-finals. Fifth hosts eighth and sixth hosts seventh in one-legged eliminators, played at the ground of the side that finished higher. The two winners then meet third and fourth over two legs, with the second leg at the home of the higher-placed club, and the third-placed side is matched with the lowest-ranked survivor rather than a fixed opponent, so there is no pre-set semi-final path. The final stays at Wembley in May. The structure is borrowed from the National League, and there are no plans to extend it to League One or League Two.
Clubs voted it through in March at an extraordinary general meeting, after the EFL board recommended it and the Football Association approved it. It is the first change to the second-tier play-off format since 1990, when the final became a one-off tie at Wembley rather than a two-legged affair.