Welcome, everybody to soccer 101.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and this week with the championship playoff final on tap for this weekend, we thought it might be a good time to take a longer look at the most lucrative game in club football. Here with me to talk all things playoff as a man who loves a playoff final, provided it comes at the end of a balanced schedule season and doesn't actually decide the league winner. It's Graham Rufford. Hello, Graham. Hello, Taylor Rockwell. I'm not so hot on playoffs right now. Nothing to do with the fact, of course, that Starlin Albion were relegated in a playoff like last week. But yeah, put that pain aside for this episode. Are you excited to talk about the biggest American innovation in English football that British people try to pretend isn't

American because it makes them a little bit uncomfortable to recognize that.

Does it make them a little bit uncomfortable because they secretly quite like it?

Yes, that's exactly why it makes them uncomfortable.

Yes, let's talk about it.

And as I said, this is because the championship final is this weekend.

But it is a question we get from time to time.

I think it is a fairly Googled thing as to why it has this reputation as being the most lucrative game,

the most like the biggest prize money, the biggest trophy you can get.

Maybe that's not quite as accurate that last one.

But the money on offer is pretty sizable when it comes to moving up from the championship to the Premier League.

So let's talk about what this thing actually is, Graham.

What is the championship playoff final?

What does it decide?

So the championship playoff final decides the final promotion place in a season from the

championship up into the Premier League.

It's played at Wembley and it takes place after the end of the

season in the championship. And the format is the top two teams in the championship go up

automatically. Then the next four teams in the table, so third, fourth, fifth and sixth, enter a

playoff system. There's a two-legged semi-final, home and away. And then the two finalists play a one-off final at Wembley, and the winner of that goes up into the Premier League, where the bottom three teams have dropped down into the championship. It's one of the most exciting games in the English football calendar because of what's at stake. For both teams, an entire season is on the line. Promotion to the Premier League can be transformational for a club, and it comes down to 90 minutes, or extra time and penalties if it gets that far. It is a huge game on the calendar every single season. It is, and it's so huge that it's something that I assumed had been around for a long, long, long time. It's been around for a long time, but maybe not as long as I would have thought, because I assumed it had been an ever-present

thing, and in doing my research, much more recent, first brought about in the 1986-1987 season,

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