28 of 60 clubs promoted to the Premier League went straight back down

Between 2006/07 and 2025/26, a club was promoted to the Premier League, England's top flight, 60 times, and in 28 of those the club went straight back down to the Championship in its 1st season. Each year the worst teams at the top go down, which is also called being relegated, and the best of the Championship go up.

To tell if 28 of 60 is a lot, compare it with the clubs that were already in the league. Counting each club once per season, 9.4% of them went down in the same years, against 46.7% of the promoted clubs, almost half. The Premier League has the highest rate of the six leagues in the archive, but the difference between the six may be just chance.

The archive covers six leagues, the top divisions of England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Brazil. Across all six, promoted clubs went straight back down in about 1 case in 3. In the Premier League's last three seasons, 7 of 9 promoted clubs went down again, a window chosen after seeing the data: a fact about three seasons, not a trend. Then the money: on 21 May 2026, Deloitte projected at least £205 million more in revenue over three seasons for the winner of the 2026 Championship play-off final.

How the calculation was made: six leagues and 118 seasons

A promoted club is one that is in the top flight in a season and was not in it the season before, because it has just come up. It went straight back down in its 1st season when it is officially relegated at the end of that same season, with the play-off and any points deductions already applied.

The play-off is an extra tie in Germany and France. The team just above the direct drop faces one from the 2nd division, and the winner plays in the 1st division the next year. In 2023/24, Bochum won theirs and stayed. Metz, who had just come up, lost theirs and went down.

One case shows why the official relegation is the test. In 2014/15, Eibar, who had just come up to LaLiga, Spain's top league, finished 18th, inside the relegation zone. They stayed in the top flight because the league relegated Elche for debt, and the calculation treats them as having stayed after their 1st season.

The numbers come from the Soccer Addicted archive, the database of scores for the six leagues. The window runs from 2006/07 to 2025/26: 118 league seasons and 353 promoted clubs. In Brazil, each championship fits in one calendar year, and the calculation runs from 2006 to 2025. Each club counts once per season, and a club that went up twice enters twice.

The number of promoted clubs varies. It is three per season in England, Spain and Italy, two or three in Germany and France, and four in Brazil. The exception is 2006, when the championship went from 22 to 20 clubs and only two went up.

Left out are the 2026/27 season, which is under way; the 2016 Brasileirão, with one match fewer in the archive; and the 2019/20 Ligue 1, which ended early. For six seasons, the full final table is not in the archive: 2023/24 in the five European leagues and the 2025/26 Ligue 1. For them, the official list of who went down applies, published by the leagues and the press. The calculation date is 9 October 2026.

Without those six seasons (2023/24 and the 2025/26 Ligue 1), 337 promoted clubs remain, and 121 of them went down (35.9%): the story is the same. Two later calculations use a slightly different window, and the text says so when they come: the second year and the final position.

Six leagues, 2006/07 to 2025/26: promoted clubs went down 3.2 times as often

In the six leagues, from 2006/07 to 2025/26, 129 of the 353 promoted clubs (36.5%) went straight back down in their 1st season, about 1 in 3. Of the 1,961 times a club was already in the top flight, 227 went down (11.6%), about 1 in 9. In other words, the promoted club's risk was 3.2 times that of the rest.

The table shows this league by league. Besides the rate, it gives the uncertainty range (95%), the range in which the true rate probably lies, given the number of cases. And it gives how many times higher the promoted club's rate is than that of clubs that had not just come up.

What this tells us: the promoted club went down in its 1st season more often than the club already in the top flight, in all six leagues, from 1.9 times as often in the Brasileirão to 5.0 times in the Premier League. Inference: the uncertainty ranges overlap, and so the data does not separate one league from another beyond chance.

Brasileirão: 24 of 74, and why the base rate is the highest

In the Brasileirão, in 24 of the 74 promotions (32.4%) the club went straight back down in its 1st season, from 2006 to 2025, without 2016. Of the 306 times a club was already in the top flight, 52 went down (17.0%), the highest base rate of the six leagues, because the championship relegates 4 of its 20 clubs a year. That is why the comparison goes by proportion: promoted Brazilian clubs went down 1.9 times as often as the others, the smallest gap of the six leagues.

In the latest editions, the figure varied from one championship to the next. In 2025, two of the four that went up went straight back down, Ceará and Sport, and the other two, Santos and Mirassol, stayed. In 2023, none of the four went down.

What this tells us: in the last three editions, 4 of the 12 promoted clubs went straight back down (none in 2023, 2 in 2024 and 2 in 2025). Inference: three editions show how the figure varies from one championship to the next, and they are too few to speak of a trend.

Does a promoted club go down? About two in three stay

Mostly not: from 2006/07 to 2025/26, 224 of the 353 promoted clubs (63.5%) stayed in the top flight. Going down was more common among promoted clubs than among the rest, but it was not the rule. In 24 of the 118 seasons, 1 in 5, none of the clubs that had come up went down.

This varies from league to league. In the Bundesliga, Germany's league, there were 7 of 20 seasons in which none of the clubs that came up went down. In LaLiga it happened in 5 of 20, in Ligue 1 in 4 of 19, in the Premier League in 3 of 20, in the Brasileirão in 3 of 19 and in Serie A in 2 of 20.

Premier League: 28 of 60, almost 1 in 2

In the Premier League, England's league, 28 of the 60 promoted clubs from 2006/07 to 2025/26 went straight back down in their 1st season: 46.7%, almost 1 in 2. It is the highest rate of the six leagues, but, as the table showed, the data does not separate it from the others.

In the last three seasons, from 2023/24 to 2025/26, 7 of the 9 promoted clubs went straight back down. In 2023/24 it was all three (Burnley, Luton Town and Sheffield United). In 2024/25, all three again (Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton). In 2025/26, one of the three, Burnley. Only twice, in the 118 seasons from 2006/07 to 2025/26, did all the promoted clubs of a league go down together, and both were in the Premier League.

What this tells us: 7 of the 9 clubs promoted in the last three Premier League seasons went straight back down, with Burnley twice, having come up in 2023/24 and in 2025/26. Inference: it is a recent fact about the league, and not proof that going up and staying up got harder.

Did the Premier League get harder for promoted clubs? The data does not prove it

The data cannot say that, however striking the 7 of 9 looks. The window of the last three seasons was chosen after seeing the data, and choosing the window after seeing the result can mislead. The fairest way is to cut the series in half: 2006/07 to 2015/16 and 2016/17 to 2025/26, ten seasons in each period.

The rate in the six leagues was 33.9% (62 of 183) in the first period and 39.4% (67 of 170) in the second, and the uncertainty ranges (27.4% to 41.0% and 32.4% to 46.9%) overlap. In the Premier League, it went from 40.0% (12 of 30) to 53.3% (16 of 30), and the data does not separate the two periods either. The rate rose in four leagues and fell in two, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, with no pattern.

The money: what a promotion is said to be worth, and who said it

For money, the piece covers only the Premier League, and each number belongs to whoever worked it out, with the date. The sums are in pounds (£), England's currency. For the other five leagues, the page gives no figures.

On 21 May 2026, the consultancy Deloitte projected what going up is worth to the winner of the 2026 Championship play-off final, England's 2nd tier. That final decides the last place in the Premier League. The figure is at least £205 million more in revenue over three seasons, and about £365 million if the club stays up after its 1st year. It includes matchday income, broadcasting rights and commercial revenue.

The equal share is a different calculation. According to NBC Sports, in a note of 27 May 2026 that cites the Premier League, each of the 20 clubs received £96.9 million in 2024/25. The sum is broadcasting rights and central commercial revenue. Matchday Finance, in a page updated on 24 January 2026, says that the bottom club of that season, Southampton, who had just come up, received £109 million.

What this tells us: Deloitte projected at least £205 million more over three seasons, and the league paid £96.9 million to each club and £109 million to the bottom one, Southampton, in 2024/25, according to the other two sources. Inference: one is a projection of extra revenue and the others are amounts paid, and so the figures cannot be added or compared with each other.

The other side is what the archive shows about staying up. In the Premier League, of the 60 promoted clubs from 2006/07 to 2025/26, 32 (53.3%) stayed in their 1st season and 28 (46.7%) went down, among them Southampton in 2024/25. The archive has no money, squad or manager data, and so it does not say whether one explains the other.

The second year: 24.4% of those who stayed up went down

Staying up in the 1st season does not mean being safe. Of the promoted clubs that survived, 52 of 213 (24.4%) went down in the 2nd season, about double the 11.6% of clubs that had not just come up. The rate was lower than in the 1st season (36.5%), but still above that of clubs that had not just come up. Here the calculation uses every season of the window whose following year is also in the archive, and the Premier League enters with two extra seasons, 2004/05 and 2005/06.

What this tells us: the 2nd-season rate ran from 14.3% in Serie A (5 of 35) to 31.9% in the Brasileirão (15 of 47). Inference: with 29 to 47 cases per league, the ranges are wide, and the order among the leagues is fragile.

Where the promoted club finishes the season

Promoted clubs usually finish in the bottom half of the table, but some finish in the top half. In the 114 league seasons with a final table in the archive, from 2004/05 to 2025/26, the 343 promoted clubs finished 14.6th on average, in a table of 18 or 20 teams. The Premier League enters with two extra seasons, 2004/05 and 2005/06. Only 67 (19.5%), almost 1 in 5, finished in the top half.

The share in the top half was the largest in the Brasileirão, from 2006 to 2025, without 2016: 20 of the 74 promoted clubs (27.0%). In Serie A it was the smallest: 8 of 57 (14.0%). Here the totals may differ from the earlier ones, because only seasons with a final table in the archive enter.

What the archive does not measure

The archive holds scores and tables. It does not hold money, squads, signings or managers. That is why the page says how many promoted clubs go down, and not why, and does not claim that spending more keeps a club in the 1st division, or the opposite. The rate also belongs to a group and not to a club: it does not say which team goes down.

In my reading, the question the numbers leave open is the size of the step up in level between the 2nd and the 1st division. It is only a question: the archive does not measure level of play, and no number here answers it.

What to do with your league's rate

If your team has just come up, your league's rate shows how it went for earlier promoted clubs, not what will happen to it. From 2006/07 to 2025/26, 129 of the 353 promoted clubs in the six leagues went down and 224 stayed. Late in the season, it is worth reading the guide to how many points keep you up: it shows what was enough in each league. The question this count does not answer is what separates the promoted club that stays from the one that goes down.