2025 RFL Championship

The 2025 RFL Championship, (officially known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons), is a professional rugby league club competition. The second tier of the British rugby league system comprises 13 clubs – 12 from England and one from France.

The season will comprise 26 rounds in the regular season with each team playing 24 fixtures and having two bye weeks. The top six teams taking part in the play-offs to determine the champions. The bottom four teams will take part in the Super 8s with the top four teams from League One to determine which three teams of the eight will play in the 2026 Championship.

Wakefield Trinity won promotion to the Super League at the end of 2024 and were replaced by London Broncos who were relegated from Super League under the IMG grading system. Promoted from League One in 2024 were Oldham and Hunslet who replaced the 2024 relegated teams, Swinton Lions, Whitehaven and Dewsbury Rams.

There will be no automatic promotion from the Championship to Super League at the end of the season. This is due to the IMG grading scheme where clubs are graded by a number of factors, not all based on on-field performance.^[1]

Following a review of the league structure below Super League, the RFL announced that by the start of the 2026 season, the Championship and League 1 would be equalised in size at 12 teams each. In March 2024 the RFL completed the review and announced that the first steps will be taken to equalise the number of teams in the Championship and League One at 12 each by the start of the 2026 season. Following the 2-up, 3-down system in 2024, 2025 will see the return of the Super 8s format with the top four teams in League One meeting the bottom four teams in the Championship to decide which division those clubs will play in for 2026.^[2] The Super 8s will comprise four rounds with each League One club playing the four clubs from the Championship, two at home and two away. After the four rounds have been completed, the top two teams will automatically qualify to play in the 2026 Championship. The teams finishing third and fourth will play each other to decide which teams gets the final place in the Championship. The losers of this match and the teams finishing fifth to eighth will play in League One in 2026.^[3]

Three rule changes are brought in for 2025:^[4]

• Kick chasers will only be offside if they are influencing the play rather than automatically being offside for being within 10 metres.
• Drop-outs that fail to travel 10 metres or go out on the full result in a play-the-ball rather than a penalty.
• Attacking players as well as defending players can be green-carded if play has to be stopped due to an injury. Previously only defending players could be green-carded.

West Yorkshire

Barrow

Doncaster

Sheffield

Oldham

London

Widnes

York

Locations of English teams competing in the 2025 Championship.

Bradford

Batley

Hunslet

Featherstone

Halifax

Locations of the 2025 RFL Championship teams in West Yorkshire

Toulouse

Locations of 2025 RFL Championship teams in France

Team	Location	Stadium	Capacity
Barrow Raiders	Barrow-in-Furness	Craven Park	4,000
Batley Bulldogs	Batley	Mount Pleasant	7,500
Bradford Bulls	Bradford	Odsal Stadium	22,000
Doncaster	Doncaster	Eco-Power Stadium	15,231
Featherstone Rovers	Featherstone	Post Office Road	8,000
Halifax Panthers	Halifax	The Shay	10,401
Hunslet	Hunslet, Leeds	South Leeds Stadium	3,450
London Broncos	Wimbledon, London	Plough Lane	9,215
Oldham	Oldham	Boundary Park	13,186
Sheffield Eagles	Sheffield	Steel City Stadium	1,320
Toulouse Olympique	Toulouse	Stade Ernest-Wallon	19,500
Widnes Vikings	Widnes	DCBL Stadium	13,350
York Knights	York	York Community Stadium	8,500

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	York Knights	21	17	0	4	640	279	+361	34	Semi-finals
2	Toulouse Olympique	20	16	0	4	517	260	+257	32
3	Bradford Bulls	20	15	0	5	542	314	+228	30	Eliminators
4	Oldham	21	13	2	6	557	392	+165	28
5	Featherstone Rovers	20	12	0	8	560	387	+173	24
6	Halifax Panthers	21	11	1	9	506	384	+122	23
7	Doncaster	20	11	0	9	478	408	+70	22
8	Widnes Vikings	20	9	2	9	360	413	−53	20
9	Barrow Raiders	21	9	1	11	471	463	+8	19
10	London Broncos	20	6	0	14	376	468	−92	12	Super 8s
11	Sheffield Eagles	20	4	0	16	291	571	−280	8
12	Batley Bulldogs	20	3	2	15	296	617	−321	8
13	Hunslet	20	2	0	18	226	864	−638	4

Rank	Player (s)	Club	Tries
1	Ben Jones-Bishop	York Knights	25
2	Edene Gebbie	Doncaster RLFC	22
3	Benjamin Laguerre	Toulouse Olympique	21
4	Olly Ashall-Bott		16
5	Jayden Okunbor	Bradford Bulls	15
	Scott Galeano	York Knights
7	Derrell Olpherts	Featherstone Rovers	13
	Liam Harris	York Knights
9	Andrew Bulman	Barrow Raiders	12
10	Guy Armitage	Bradford Bulls	11
	Waqa Blake
	Kieran Dixon	Oldham RLFC

Rank	Player (s)	Club	Goals
1	Liam Harris	York Knights	69
2	Jake Shorrocks	Toulouse Olympique	68
3	Ben Reynolds	Featherstone Rovers	58
4	Connor Robinson	Doncaster RLFC	57
5	Josh Drinkwater	Oldham RLFC	48
6	Jordan Lilley	Bradford Bulls	47
7	Brad Walker	Barrow Raiders	43
8	Louis Jouffret	Halifax Panthers	42
9	Jack Smith	London Broncos	37
10	Josh Woods	Batley Bulldogs	34
	Tom Gilmore	Widnes Vikings

Rank	Player (s)	Club	Points
1	Liam Harris	York Knights	192
2	Jake Shorrocks	Toulouse Olympique	141
3	Ben Reynolds	Featherstone Rovers	140
4	Connor Robinson	Doncaster RLFC	126
5	Josh Drinkwater	Oldham RLFC	124
6	Jordan Lilley	Bradford Bulls	118
7	Louis Jouffret	Halifax Panthers	104
8	Kieran Dixon	Oldham RLFC	102
9	Ben Jones-Bishop	York Knights	100
10	Brad Walker	Barrow Raiders	99

As of 19 August 2025: (Round 21)

Rank	Player	Club	Cards
1	Alex Bishop	Barrow Raiders	1
	Bayley Liu	Bradford Bulls
	Edene Gebbie	Doncaster RLFC
	Suaia Matagi
	Sam Campbell	Hunslet RLFC

Rank	Player	Club	Cards
1	Keelan Foster	Hunslet RLFC	3
2	Ryan King	Barrow Raiders	2
	Curtis Teare
4	Ryan Brown		1
	James Meadows	Bradford Bulls
	Eliot Peposhi
	Ebon Scurr
	Suaia Matagi	Doncaster RLFC
	Pauli Pauli
	Danny Addy	Featherstone Rovers
	Connor Jones
	Gadwin Springer
	King Vuniyayawa
	William Calcott	Halifax Panthers
	Ronan Dixon
	Jacob Fairbank
	Vila Halafihi
	Zack McComb
	Sam Campbell	Hunslet RLFC
	Lachlan Hanneghan
	Kevin Larroyer
	Coby Nichol
	Ethan O'Hanlon
	Jordan Syme
	Mackenzie Turner
	Ben Davies	Oldham RLFC
	Eddie Battye	Sheffield Eagles
	Alex Foster
	Evan Hodgson
	Kris Welham
	Robert Butler	Toulouse Olympique
	Joe Cator
	Ellis Gillam
	Baptiste Rodriguez
	Ben Condon	Widnes Vikings
	Nick Gregson
	Adam Lawton
	Sam Cook	York Knights
	Jesse Dee
	Ata Hingano

As of 12 August 2025: (Round 20)