Gallagher Premiership will expand to 14 teams from 2022-23 season with temporary halt on relegation after damaging effects of Covid pandemic
- Covid crisis has had impact on RFU and changes to Premiership were agreed
- There will be 13 teams next year and then 14, as reported by Sportsmail
- In 2023-24 season, the bottom Premiership team will have relegation play-off
- Top Championship club will have opportunity to come up via huge game
The RFU denied that they have sanctioned the ‘ring-fencing’ of the Premiership, after approving an extended suspension of relegation from the top flight.
As forecast by a Sportsmail report in April, there will be no automatic one-up, one-down system between the Premiership and the second-tier Championship until at least the end of the 2024-25 season.
There will be a play-off at the end of the 2023-24 campaign — between the club bottom of the Premiership and the winners of the Championship — if the latter satisfy revised criteria for promotion.
The Premiership will expand to 13 teams with relegation suspended next season
Elite clubs have been pushing for guarantees against relegation for years, but their demands have escalated amid the financial insecurity of the pandemic.
They secured their desired outcome by doing a deal with the RFU to finish the 2022-23 season early, in May, to allow England more time to prepare for the next World Cup.
The Premiership will increase to 13 teams next season and 14 from 2022-23 — if the new clubs agree to entry terms which are likely to include the purchase of league shares, at an estimated cost of £35million.
While many fans have been in uproar about the prospect of a cosy cabal, officials welcomed the decision. RFU president Judge Jeff Blackett said: ‘The changes will undoubtedly benefit rugby in England. This is not ring-fencing, as some have suggested.’
Nigel Melville, chairman of the Premiership Rugby Investor Board, added: ‘The plan will create a stable platform for the game so that clubs can rebuild after the unprecedented financial pressures of Covid.’
Saracens are going back up next term having won promotion from the Championship