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As a guideline for promotion and relegation rules I am going to take the English league structure as an example. In the English Premier League it is fairly simple, there is no promotion from this league as this is the top of the top. For the relegation rules, The bottom three clubs are relegated down to the league below, which is the Championship. These three teams are decided over a season consisting of 38 games for each club to play, there are 20 clubs in this league. Each team play each other twice. Once at home and once away. The three bottom clubs will be the ones that have the least points come the end of the season. The points system is simple also; three points for a win, one point a piece for a draw and zero points if you lose. At the end of the season if the third and forth bottom teams have equal points, who gets relegated is decided by "goal difference" this is the sum of the goals the team has scored minus the goals that the team has conceded. whichever team has the lowest "goal difference" will be the team to be relegated. In the unlikely, but very possible, event of the third and forth bottom teams have the same goal difference it will go down to which of the two has scored the most goals.

Promotion from the Championship to the Premiership is simple. The two top teams, with the most points at the end of the season automatically get promoted. For the third team to go up, so that an equal amount of teams get promoted to the Premiership as the amount of teams that get relegated to the Championship, it is decided by "playoffs" to be eligble to play in the playoffs you must finish between third and sixth in the league. In this instance third place would play sixth place and forth place would play fifth. This is the first round of the playoffs and the winners of each game will go on to play each other in the playoff Final. The winner of the Final will be the third and final team to be promoted. In the result of a draw in either of these games, the game would go to extra time, which is an additional 30 minutes of play consisting of two 15 minute halfs. If play is still equal after this time the game will go to a Penalty Shootout. This is where the two teams take it in turns to take a penalty. It is best out of 5 unless it is still equal after 5 penalties each. If this happens it will go to sudden death where each team take alternative penalties until one team misses. Relegation from the Championship is exactly the same as relegation from the Premiership.

The promotion and relegation rules are consistant throughout the rest of the English league system:

League One - Top two automatic promotion, third through playoffs. Bottom four relegated.

League Two - Top three automatic promotion, forth through playoffs. Bottom two relegated.

Conference - Top team automatic promotion, second through playoffs. Bottom four relegated

Relegation from the conference means you will be split into Conference North and Conference South, whichever you belong to.

From both the Conference North and Conference South the top team gets automatic promotion and the second is decided through playoffs. The bottom three get relegated, if you're relegated from here, you're out of the system.

Learn more about this author, Steve Grant.
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