Black Cats boss calls for play-off for promotion
SUNDERLAND boss Phil Parkinson has given his backing to a radical plan to decide promotion from League One this season.
With the season currently suspended, Coventry City are five points clear at the top of the table with 10 games left to play.
The Sky Blues have a seven-point cushion inside the automatic promotion places, with a game in hand over their closest challengers.
The campaign is in danger of being curtailed and, if that was to happen, Coventry look set to be promoted under an average pointsper-game system.
However, many of their promotion rivals want to see the remaining fixtures completed.
Sunderland are one of those clubs – they currently sit seventh in the table, just outside the play-off zone on goal difference.
Parkinson says that if the season cannot be finished in full, a minitournament should be held to decide promotion and relegation.
There appears to be some confusion over what this would mean for
Coventry City. The Chronicle reports that the tournament would take the form of an extended playoff competition to decide the third promotion spot, contested between eight teams between third and 10th.
That suggests Coventry and second-placed Rotherham United would be promoted automatically without playing another game.
That is backed by Peterborough United chairman Darragh Macanthony (see right), who said: “I even suggested if we had play-offs we should go for broke and have an 8-10 team tournament with matches live on Sky to determine who joins the top two in the Championship.”
However, the Sunderland Echo says it is not clear how many teams would be involved and whether Coventry and Rotherham would be handed promotion under the proposal. Only one point separates third-placed Oxford and eighthplaced Wycombe, with Doncaster and Ipswich slightly further back in ninth and 10th respectively.
PETERBOROUGH United chairman Darragh Macanthony vowed to keep fighting for his side’s right to challenge for promotion, using Coventry City to make his point.
The EFL announced their plans for tables to be decided with an unweighted points-pergame system should remaining fixtures be cancelled, with City League One champions.
However, the EFL’S preferred method has caused controversy. If they went ahead with an unweighted system, Wycombe Wanderers would leap from eighth to third, knocking Peterborough out of the play-offs.
For Macanthony, that is plainly unfair. His fight is not with Coventry, who he believes deserve to be promoted, but he has used the fact that Wycombe face Mark Robins’ side to make his point.
“We’re still in there fighting,” Macanthony said. “Just because League Two have voted one way doesn’t mean we will automatically follow. We will fight to the end. There are still things to debate and there are some mid-table clubs open to backing us. The fat lady is not singing yet.
“There is a good batch of clubs who want to keep playing, but also a good number who want to shut up shop. It’s bizarre. We are all in the football business and now we have a green light to play again, lots of clubs don’t want to play.
“The right thing to do is to play whenever that’s possible.
“They might even use points per game to decide final placings which means we would be screwed out of the play-offs. It’s deflating, but I am still fighting and there will be more meetings taking place.
“We have lost three of our last 10 games, we have nine matches left and five are at home. We really fancy it with the games we have left. How can it be right that the chance of promotion is just taken away from us? There are so many factors that are ignored by using PPG. Wycombe would move above us under PPG, but their game in hand is at Coventry who have lost three times all season. Who decides they would win that game?
“It’s just wrong on so many fronts. I even suggested if we had play-offs we should go for broke and have an 8-10 team tournament with matches on Sky to determine who joins the top two in the Championship.”