The 2024/25 season may have just opened its doors, but they will already be thinking about the end of the campaign.
Unlike the National League, League Two offers competing teams a fair chance of promotion to the third tier of English football. Four teams will gain promotion to League One at the end of the season, and one of the four climbers will be decided by the League Two play-offs.
It’s always a bad and exciting time. The May sunshine shines on humble English stadiums while passionate local fans will find home heroes and loan players unabashedly romantic.
Here’s everything you need to know about the 2025 League Two play-offs.
The League Two play-offs will feature the four teams that finish in the bottom three automatic promotion places.
Therefore, teams finishing between fourth and seventh qualify for League Two with two semi-finals and a final at Wembley deciding the fourth team to be promoted to League One from the fourth tier.
The fourth will face the seventh and the fifth will take the sixth place in the two-legged semi-finals, and the winners will go to the finals. Away goals are not the most important factor, so if the scores are tied at the end of both legs, extra time and penalties will decide the winner.
The League Two play-offs will begin after the season wraps up in May. The English Football League (EFL) has confirmed that the last League Two games of the season will be played on 3 May 2025.
There will be a short break at the end of the season and the start of the League Two play-offs, with the first legs of the two semi-finals usually being played around a week after the conclusion of the campaign.
Although there is no confirmed date for when the 2025 play-off final will take place, the competition is usually held on the Second Bank Holiday in May. The 2024 final between Crawley and Crewe was on 19 May.
There is still a lot of football to be played before the League Two table starts to take shape and, as expected, there will be more than a few surprises.
However, it is difficult to ignore the teams that have left the bottom of League One in terms of seeking the play-offs. Cheltenham, Port Vale, Fleetwood again Carlisle they will all be looking to compete at the top of League Two in 2024/25.
MK Dons they were beaten in the play-offs last week and are looking for automatic promotion, as well Bradford following a busy recruiting summer.
Billy Sharp would encourage a Doncaster a team that was also beaten in the playoffs last season, but Crewe they may struggle to repeat their impressive 2023/24 campaign given the departures they have been monitoring this summer.
Chesterfield can carry their momentum from last season’s National League win into 2024/25 and produce an impressive League Two campaign, while Karl Robinson’s Salford should not be ignored. Is this the year the Class of ’92 finally makes the playoffs?
There is an absence of wealth here. Winners of this one-time draw do not receive a large bonus.
The Premier League instead offers a £430,000 fee to each League Two club on top of its £472,000 base fee from the EFL just for competing in this division. There is no top payout based on where the teams finish.
Of course, these basic costs increase when promoted to League One. In the third tier, clubs receive a base fee of £677,000 and a fee of £642,000 from the Premier League.
No team has had more success in the League Two play-offs than Blackpool, who have risen from the fourth tier via this route three times. Their last victory was in 2017.
Cheltenham, Northampton and Southend won two finals each. In contrast, Exeter and Torquay, now in the National League South, have lost three League Two play-off finals.
READ MORE ON THE PLAY-OFF HUNT OVER THE EFL
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