Changes to Premier League 2 for upcoming season
From the official Chelsea FC website:
Fixtures for the upcoming PL2 season will be announced the week commencing 31 July and the Premier League has announced changes to the league’s format…
One of the major changes for the 2023/24 season is there will only be one division consisting of all the ‘Category One’ clubs.
The present format and competition title dates from 2016/17, before which it was called the Under-21 Premier League.
Here we explain what will change…
What is the current system for PL2?
Last season the Premier League 2 comprised the 25 clubs with ‘Category One’ academies split into two divisions – 14 teams in Division 1 and 11 in Division 2 – with relegation and promotion of two clubs in each division.
Teams played each other home and away, with the two bottom clubs from Division 1 relegated and the champions of Division 2 going up along with another team determined by a play-off of the teams finishing second to fifth.
What will be the new system and how will it work?
For the 2023/24 season, there will be only one division made up of clubs with Category One academies. At present there are 26 such clubs.
Those teams will be divided into five pots based on performances over the past three seasons.
Fixtures will be determined by a draw made according to clubs’ positions in the five seeded pots.
There will be 20 matchweeks, with each team playing 20 regular-season matches throughout the season.
Teams will play each club in their own seeding pot once, as well as three to five teams in all other pots either home or away.
Results (three points for a win and one point for a draw) will generate a table ranking the 26 teams. After the regular season of 20 matchweeks has completed, the top 16 teams will qualify for a single elimination play-off.
Teams will be drawn against each other based on their league positions, for example the team finishing first facing the team that finished 16th. These will be one-off elimination matches with the higher-seeded team at home.
In addition, the teams finishing the regular season in the top 12 will be invited to take part in the next season’s Premier League International Cup competition.
‘Chelsea Supporters Group’ can also be found on Twitter and Facebook
