Wrexham are aiming for the Premier League, and potential changes to the Championship play-off rules could help Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds.
Ryan Reynolds quickly targeted Premier League football after completing his Wrexham takeover alongside Rob Mac in 2021.
People laughed at the time, but Wrexham have now clinched three straight promotions and sit in the Championship, just one division below the Premier League.
Reaching the Premier League will not be easy, but potential changes to the Championship play-off rules could aid Wrexham’s hopes.
Wrexham owners, Ryan Reynolds (L) and Rob McElhenney (R)
Photo by Jon Hobley/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Proposed changes to Championship play-off rules
The Athletic report that the EFL are now considering extending the play-off places from four to six.
The top two teams would still go up automatically, but the plans would see teams from third to eighth place enter the play-offs.
Similar to the National League play-off system, the eighth-placed team would face the fifth-placed team, and the seventh-placed team would face the sixth-placed team in an ‘eliminator round’.
The winners would then go on to play the third and fourth-placed teams for the chance to play in the final at Wembley.
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Preston North End chief executive Peter Ridsdale has presented the idea to other Championship executives – and the proposal was ‘very well received’.
The idea is that extending the number of play-off places would ‘reduce dead-rubber matches’ in the final stages of the season, as well as adding more ‘high-profile games’.
How would Wrexham benefit from the potential rule changes?
Put simply, Wrexham would have a chance to reach the Premier League without finishing in the top six places.
The current format means just four teams qualify for the play-offs, but extending the field just gives Wrexham a greater chance of sneaking in.
Of course, finishing seventh or eighth would mean a very difficult road to Wembley, facing off against teams who finished higher in the table.
A chance is a chance, though, and Rob Mac will know all about the benefit of just being in the dance.
Mac is a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan, and multiple Super Bowl winners have ended up winning it all despite coming into the NFL playoffs as a low seed.
The trade-off would be a more difficult route through the play-offs in exchange for a wider pool of teams being involved in the play-offs, and Wrexham would surely believe that a top-eight finish is possible in the future.
The Premier League could say no
These changes, even if passed, would not be implemented this season and would come into effect down the line.
However, The Athletic also draw attention to Football Association rules, which state that all ‘changes to competition formats require the approval of the FA Board’.
That would mean Premier League approval as well, and it’s believed that they have previously been against the idea.
The Premier League fear that the possibility of seventh or eighth-placed Championship teams winning promotion would ‘dilute’ the quality of competition in the top flight.
That is a concern for these plans, but Wrexham will keep very close tabs on potential developments amid a possible change to the route to Premier League action.