How Many Teams Get Relegated From the Championship?
Three teams normally go down from football’s EFL Championship. Handball relegation depends on the competition, age category and season’s rules.
If you mean English football’s EFL Championship, the standard answer is three teams: the clubs finishing 22nd, 23rd and 24th are relegated to League One. Regulation 10.1.2(b) of the EFL’s 2024/25 handbook specifies the three lowest-finishing Championship clubs; the division’s current table has 24 clubs. EFL handbook · Official Championship table
That three-team answer is specific to football. In handball, “championship” alone does not identify a relegation number. The competition, season and age category matter—and relegation from a qualifying stage is different from relegation based on a final tournament’s standings.
Handball example: men’s under-18 EHF EURO
The 2026 men’s under-18 EHF EURO regulations link the tournament’s final positions to places in the 2028 men’s under-20 EHF EURO and the lower-tier under-20 EHF Championship I. The relegation clauses cover the bottom three, four or five positions, depending on where the 2028 under-20 EURO host nation or nations finished.
| Host situation for the 2028 men’s under-20 EURO | Positions listed in the 2026 under-18 EURO relegation clause |
|---|---|
| The host is among the top 21 | 22nd–24th |
| One host is outside the top 21 | 21st–24th |
| Two hosts are outside the top 21 | 20th–24th |
These are the conditional clauses in articles 8.13–8.15, not a confirmed count of relegated teams. Article 8.10 separately guarantees direct places to the host nation or nations, so the listed positions must be read alongside that host entitlement. EHF younger-age EURO regulations for 2026, articles 8.9–8.15
The age labels are important: this rule carries the 2026 under-18 cohort into the 2028 under-20 competition. It is not relegation from the senior European Championship or from a domestic club league.
Senior EHF EURO qualifying uses a different rule
For the men’s EHF EURO 2026 qualifiers, the EHF specified that up to four of the lowest-ranked fourth-place teams would be relegated to the Promotion Round of the 2028 qualifiers. That changes their route into the next qualifying cycle; it is not a bottom-four relegation rule for the EURO final tournament. EHF’s 2026 qualifying procedure
When reading a handball table, check whether it shows a domestic league, a qualifying group or a final tournament before treating its bottom positions as relegation places.