Burnley are stuck in the Championship relegation zone and now own a record they would rather not have. When they host Portsmouth on Saturday it will be 378 days since their last home win, the longest such run in English league history. The Clarets are sitting in the relegation zone, and a growing number of people are asking whether back-to-back relegations from the Premier League to League One are becoming more common.
The trend is real
In the first 20 seasons of the Premier League it happened once, to Swindon Town, and even then there were special circumstances. Swindon finished fourth bottom of the second tier in 1994-95 but went down because of the league being cut to 20 clubs. By that logic, Wolves were the first true double-drop side after relegation in 2011-12. Since then it has happened four times in 14 seasons, with Sunderland, Luton and Leicester all dropping from the top flight to League One in successive years.
Each of those cases came with its own mess. Wolves went through four managers and made a string of poor signings. Sunderland became the only club to finish bottom of both divisions, winning just 13 of 84 league matches. Leicester's fall was tied to boardroom decisions, including a six-point deduction for breaching profit and sustainability rules. They finished 23rd in the Championship, five points from safety, and now sit 11th in League One with the club up for sale under Russell Martin.
Burnley's own problems
Burnley's slide has been messy. Head coach Nicky Hayen was always unlikely to survive a 4-1 defeat at Lincoln City, a side who were in non-league football a decade ago, with 1,450 travelling supporters watching on. Fabio Celestini has since been brought in as manager, and Diego Lopez has been appointed chief football officer. Supporters have protested against Alan Pace's ALK Capital ownership for much of the season, and the club carried £142m in loans in the 2024-25 accounts, the highest debt in the Championship.
The financial gap with Lincoln shows how strange this is. Burnley's revenue in 2024-25 was £71.7m, against Lincoln's £7.81m. The Clarets then took in £48m in parachute payments, where Lincoln can expect around £5.5m in solidarity funding. Even so, football is not played purely on balance sheets.
Could the gap close?
The Independent Football Regulator wants a new financial deal between the Premier League and the EFL to cut the distorting effect of parachute payments. It favours merit payments based on final league position, instead of every Championship club getting the same amount. Chair David Kogan says the difference between clubs with and without parachutes will shrink significantly, which should make the division more competitive.
Former Watford and Reading midfielder Jobi McAnuff, now an EFL pundit, does not think the double drop will become a trend. He puts Luton's and Leicester's falls down to mismanaging their squads, and still expects the parachute advantage to matter. The regulator's own report found that clubs receiving parachutes were more than four times more likely to be promoted. Burnley may yet escape, as the money outweighs the poor decisions. But the pattern should worry any relegated club that is not ready for the Championship.
Context: Burnley host Portsmouth on Saturday, 378 days since their last home win. Parachute payments: £48m in year one, £39m in year two. Source: BBC Sport.
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