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29 March 2024

Championship going for gold

Published
By Reuters

 

The race for a place in the Premier League reaches its climax tomorrow with eight Championship clubs still in the hunt for promotion.

West Bromwich Albion are all but assured of going up barring a freakish set of results, while Stoke City, Hull City, Bristol City, Watford, Crystal Palace, Ipswich Town, Wolves and Sheffield United may join them.

The rewards for gaining promotion are enormous with the three promoted teams set to receive the biggest financial boost in world club football, worth around £60m (Dh435m) over three years.

Paul Rawnsley, director of the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: "The financial prize for promotion to the Premier League will provide each promoted club with at least £35m of additional revenue in 2008-09.

"In addition, even if a club is relegated after one year at the top level, guaranteed parachute payments of more than £12m per season will be received for two more seasons."

With West Brom almost up, the race for second is between Stoke and Hull. Stoke will go up automatically if they get a point from their match against relegation-threatened Leicester. Hull will go straight up if they win at Ipswich and Stoke lose. All 24 teams kick off their final matches at 4pm UAE time.