Relegation used to be a fixture of a Premiership Rugby season, with the teams in the bottom half of the table looking over their shoulder as they battled to avoid a season in the Championship. As a result, end-of-season jeopardy is currently confined to the question of who will make the play-offs.

Since Saracens faced the drop in 2020, however, no side has been relegated from the Premiership, and no one promoted from the Championship since their return the following year.

Below we explain why Gallagher Premiership promotion and relegation have been on hiatus, and ask if we’ll ever see them again.

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When was the last time the Gallagher Premiership had promotion and relegation?

The last team relegated from the Gallagher Premiership were Saracens in the 2019/20 season. They were relegated thanks to the 105-point deduction they received as punishment for breaching the league’s salary cap, ending the season on -38 points.

The last team relegated on purely sporting grounds were Newcastle Falcons in the 2018/19 season.

Saracens were also the last team promoted from the RFU Championship. They finished second in the league at the end of the 2020/21 season, but comfortably beat table-topping Ealing Trailfinders in a two-legged play-off to secure a place back in the Premiership after one season.

What’s happened to promotion and relegation since?

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the RFU and the Premiership teams approved a moratorium on relegation for the 2020/21 season. This increased the number of teams in the division from 12 to 13 – conveniently, they were the Premiership’s 13 stakeholders. (Pre-pandemic, members of “the 13” effectively took it in turns to spend a year in the Championship, with Bristol Bears, Newcastle Falcons, Worcester Warriors and Saracens all doing season-long stints in the lower league.)

Post-Covid, a new plan was instigated to increase the number of teams in the Premiership to 14:

At the end of the 2021/22 season, the winner of the Championship would be promoted to the Premiership, with no promotion and relegation to/from the Premiership the following year. Then, from the end of the 2023/24 season there would be a play-off between the bottom team in the Premiership and the winner of the Championship to decide who’d play in the Premiership the following year.

Read more: Who can still win the Gallagher Premiership? 

If that’s the case, why are there only 10 teams in the Premiership? And why did no play-off take place last season?

Since the above plan went into action, Wasps, Worcester Warriors and London Irish have all gone into administration and left the competition. Even before those clubs went under, the Premiership missed its 14-club target because 2021/22 Championship winners Ealing Trailfinders failed to meet the minimum standards criteria (essentially a ground capacity of at least 10,001) required to play in the Premiership.

This is also the reason why Ealing Trailfinders didn’t get to contest a play-off against Newcastle Falcons last season, even though they topped the Championship table.

The Ealing Trailfinders have been front runners in the Championship (Getty Images)

In fact, the only team in the entire 12-team Championship who meet the criteria for promotion are fifth-placed Doncaster Knights, meaning that – despite being odds-on to win the league for the third time in four seasons – Ealing will again be denied a shot at the Premiership this year.

As a result of these various factors, Worcester Warriors, Bath Rugby and Newcastle Falcons have all been able to finish bottom of the Premiership table without falling through the trap door to the Championship.

Will we ever see top-flight promotion and relegation again?

That remains to be seen. The Championship will be rebranded as Champ Rugby from next season and expanded to 14 teams. Tier 2 chair Simon Gillham has also emphasised his aim to “make sure that there’s proper aspiration and there’s proper jeopardy” – in other words, ensuring there’s both promotion (via six-team play-offs for the right to face the Premiership’s bottom team) and relegation from the league.

Unless the best teams in the Championship can meet those all-important minimum stadium standards, however, it’s going to be hard to turn those aspirations into reality. They may also face resistance from existing Premiership teams.

Reports suggest that some key stakeholders are hoping to ringfence the Premiership, abolishing relegation and adopting a franchise model. The threat of the drop undoubtedly makes leagues more exciting and competitive as the season heads into April and May, but if you’re a club owner staring at the bottom line, why would you risk a season in the new-look Champ Rugby if you could avoid it?

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