Today’s general assembly between the professional clubs in Portugal has brought about a new rule change that will be introduced next season, the 2020/21 campaign regarding promotion and relegation.
Currently, the bottom two sides in Primeira Liga are automatically relegated to Liga Pro (Portugal’s second tier) and the top two teams from LigaPro are automatically promoted to the Primeira Liga. However, next season a third team will be either be promoted or relegated, with the Liga Portugal following Bundesliga’s play-off system.
The side who finish 16th in the Primeira Liga table will take on the LigaPro’s third-placed team in a two-legged showdown that will determine who goes up or down. An example of how this works would be the Bundesliga and Bundesliga II in Germany. At the end of the 2018/19 season, Stuttgart who finished 16th in Germany’s top flight, took on Bundesliga II’s Union Berlin, Union Berlin progressed on away goals, taking Stuttgart’s Bundesliga place and relegated them to the Germany’s second division.
