How a Proposed Radical Change Could Boost Wrexham’s Promotion Chances

Wrexham’s improbable march toward the Premier League could receive an unexpected assist from the boardroom. The English Football League will convene on 5 March, when 72 member clubs will vote on a plan to expand the Championship playoff field from four teams to six, a tweak that would lower the bar for Phil Parkinson’s side to keep their fairy-tale ascent alive.

Under the existing structure, only the top two sides earn automatic passage to the Premier League, while clubs finishing third through sixth contest a mini-tournament that ends at Wembley. The proposed reform, first reported by The Guardian, would extend invitations to the sides that finish seventh and eighth, creating an additional knockout round that mirrors the format used in the National League.

If approved by a simple majority of the 72 clubs and the 24 Championship representatives, the new system would debut in the 2026-27 campaign. The third- and fourth-placed teams would still receive byes to the semi-finals, while fifth would host eighth and sixth would host seventh in single-elimination play-in games. The victors would join the higher seeds in the traditional two-legged semi-finals, with the final continuing to decide the third promotion spot.

For Wrexham, the implications are impossible to ignore. After 31 matches of their first Championship season since 1982-83, the Red Dragons occupy sixth place, inside the current playoff cut-line but only a stumble away from slipping out. Should they endure a late-season dip—or fall short in May’s knockout games—they would remain in the second tier for at least another year.

Yet if the six-team playoff is ratified, the margin for error widens. A top-eight finish—rather than a top-six berth—would be sufficient to keep alive the dream of joining Europe’s elite, a scenario that would have seemed delusional when Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney completed their takeover in early 2021. Four consecutive promotions, once the stuff of pub-room fantasy, would remain mathematically attainable.

The vote itself carries no guarantees. Championship incumbents may resist diluting their own playoff odds, while League One and Two clubs could view the change as a slippery precedent for future restructuring. Still, the EFL board has already given the proposal its preliminary blessing, leaving the final say to the membership.

Parkinson and his squad can influence only what happens on the pitch between now and May. After that, a ballot box in a conference suite may prove just as pivotal to Wrexham’s quest to trade League Two memories for Premier League realities.