Test match (football)

A test match in football is a match played at the end of a season between a team that has done badly in a higher league and one that has done well in a lower league of the same football league system. The winner of the test match plays in the higher league the following year, and the loser in the lower league.

When the Football League was first expanded to two divisions in 1893, test matches were employed to decide relegation and promotion between them, but the practice was scrapped in favour of automatic relegation and promotion in 1899. In recent years the League has favoured playoffs instead of test matches: The requisite number of teams at the bottom of the higher league are automatically relegated; the same number of teams, less one, are promoted automatically from the lower division, with the final promotion place going to one team from the following four, after semi-final and final playoff matches. For example, the bottom three in the Premiership are automatically relegated, the top two in the Championship are promoted, while the teams in third, fourth, fifth and sixth enter the playoffs.

In 2004, Italy's football (soccer) league used a two-legged test match to determine one spot in the top level of its system, Serie A. Some leagues in continental Europe combine automatic promotion/relegation with test matches. For example, in the Netherlands, only one club is automatically relegated from its top level, the Eredivisie, each season. The next two lower-placed teams enter a promotion/relegation mini-league with high-placed teams from the Dutch First Division (although not the winner, which earns automatic promotion).

J.League in Japan uses a test match between the third-from-bottom team in J1 and third-place team in J2 (see J. League Promotion/Relegation Series).

ee also

*Playoff