The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the

English Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engl ...

(EFL) and fourth-highest division overall in the

English football league system The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isl ...

. Football League Two was introduced for the 2004–05 season. It was previously known as the

Football League Third Division The Football League Third Division was the third tier of the English football league system in 1920–21 and again from 1958 until 1992. When the FA Premier League was formed, the division become the fourth tier level. In 2004, following the f ...

. Before the advent of the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

in 1992, the fourth-highest division was known as the

Football League Fourth Division The Football League Fourth Division was the fourth-highest division in the English football league system from the 1958–59 season until the creation of the Premier League prior to the 1992–93 season. Whilst the division disappeared in name ...

. As of the 2022–23 season,

Mansfield Town Mansfield Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Stags', they ...

and Newport County hold the longest tenure in League Two, having promoted to the division in the 2012–13 season. There are currently two former

clubs competing in League 2:

Bradford City Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes. Th ...

(1999-2001), and Swindon Town (1993-94).

Structure

There are 24 clubs in League Two. Each club plays each of the other clubs twice (once at

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

and once

away Away may refer to: Film and television * ''Away'' (2016 film), a 2016 British film * ''Away'' (2019 film), a 2019 animated silent film * ''Away'' (TV series), a 2020 science fiction drama on Netflix Literature * ''Away'' (play), a 1986 play by M ...

) and is awarded three points for a win, one for a draw and no points for a loss. From these points a league table is constructed. At the end of each season the top three teams, together with the winner of the play-offs between the teams which finished in the fourth to seventh positions, are promoted to

EFL League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

and are replaced by the four teams that finished at the bottom of that division. Similarly, the two teams that finished at the bottom of League Two are relegated to the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

and are replaced by the team that finished first and the team that won the second through seventh place play-off in that division. Technically a team can be reprieved from relegation if the team replacing them does not have a ground suitable for League football, but in practice this is a non-factor because every team currently in the National League has a ground that meets the League criteria (and even if they did not, a ground-sharing arrangement with another team could be made until their stadium was upgraded). The other way that a team can be spared relegation is if another team either resigns or is expelled from the EFL. Final league position is determined, in order, by points obtained,

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

, goals scored, a mini-league of the results between two or more teams ranked using the previous three criteria, and finally a series of one or more play-off matches. There is a mandatory wage cap in this division that limits spending on players' wages to 100% of club turnover.

Current members

The following 24 clubs are competing in League Two during the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season.

Teams promoted from League Two

Play-off results

Relegated teams

References and notes

External links

Football League Two official site
{{Authority control 2004 establishments in England 3 4 Eng Sports leagues established in 2004 Professional sports leagues in the United Kingdom