With the end of the season fast approaching, it will soon be time for attention to be turned to the thrills and spills of the playoffs. The end-of-season lottery keeps teams dreaming when the chance of automatic promotion has long gone.
Throughout the Football League, the playoff structure remains as it has been for some time. Each division contains two semi-finals, decided on league position, with the final being played between the two winners.
Elsewhere, the National League have introduced playoff elimination matches, to give more teams the chance to earn promotion. In some of the regional divisions, a relegation playoff match is held between, for example, the team finishing second bottom in the league above and the team who came second in the league below.
This method is similar to some used on the continent, with the French Ligue 1 playoffs taking place between the 16th place team in Ligue 1 and the winner of the Ligue 2 playoff final.
With the different approaches to the playoffs in mind, is it time for the English Football League to revamp the way the playoffs are structured?
The Real EFL were given the exclusive opportunity to ask former Torquay United and Bradford City winger Lee Sharpe for his thoughts on the current playoff structure and whether it should look more like the French model.
“I think that might be quite a good idea. I think to play a top team against a team that’s coming down or one of them, maybe make champions go up and the bottom team go down but then maybe a second team from the bottom and second team from the top could play.”
Sharpe was involved with the Torquay side that competed in the Division Four playoffs at the end of the 1987-88 season and was also involved at Valley Parade when they gained promotion to the Premier League.
He believes the playoffs could do with a little bit of a change.
“I think that makes things interesting, it does change things up a little bit. I don’t know whether they are looking to change but I think that would be a good idea. If you were to change, playing the bottom teams against the top teams sounds like a good plan.”
The opportunity to talk to Lee Sharpe was provided by BetVictor.
Writer’s View
The playoffs are a brilliant addition to any league season and give teams something to fight for long after automatic promotion is out of reach.
We have consistently seen the sheer joy and utter despair they bring and are brilliant entertainment. Any change to the structure has to ensure that excitement remains. Not only that, it would be perhaps dangerous to encourage second chances for teams who finish in the relegation zone for fear the division will stagnate.
