THERE will be one more place for promotion-seeking teams to aim at in the 2021 Betfred Championship season as the play-off spots are to be extended to the top six.

As in previous seasons, only one team will win promotion to Super League.

The Championship, which kicks off over the Easter weekend at the start of next month, will adopt the same top six play-off system which was used in Super League in 2020.

That means the top two in the final table will earn a bye through the first round of the play-offs before playing the winners of sudden death fixtures between the teams that finished between third and sixth.

The winners of those two semi-finals will meet in the ‘Million Pound Game’ to determine promotion to the Betfred Super League in 2022.

Games will be played over a three-week period from September 25 to October 10, and will be shown live on Sky Sports.

York City Knights, who finished third in the last full Championship season, in 2019, will be hoping they do not need to bank on the sixth spot to make the play-offs.

Clubs will be required to have played 70 per cent of their league fixtures (16 out of 22) to qualify for the play-offs.

The bottom two teams in the Betfred Championship will be relegated – irrespective of how many fixtures they have played.

The clubs had already agreed that league positions will be determined by points percentage to allow for the possibility of teams being forced to withdraw from fixtures because of Covid. They will be allowed to do so if seven or more players are ruled out either after testing positive, or as close contacts of a positive test following test and trace analysis.

Clubs have also agreed to remove golden point to reduce demands on players who will have gone almost a year without playing.

Meanwhile, the Knights’ opening fixture against Toulouse Olympique could be rearranged with the French side subject to changing quarantine rules.

An announcement about the impact on Toulouse’s early-season fixtures will be made in the coming days.