Losing Qualifyers
This will now be 4 losing qualifyers who will participate in a group, everyone will play each other twice.
The top 2 will progress to the 3rd placed league
3rd Placed League
The next stage will be called 'The 3rd Placed League'
It will contain all of those who finished 3rd in their respective groups of the main European & Worldwide Competition.
The top 2 finishers in the losing qualifyers group will also participate in the '3rd placed league' bringing it's total to 10 participants.
Everyone will play each other once.The winner of the '3rd placed league' will receive a £10
betfair free bet and also gain direct automatic entry into the next European & Worldwide Competition group stages.
Those ending up 2nd, 3rd ,4th and 5th in the table will participate in the 'play offs'
The winner of the play offs will receive no prize, but will gain direct automatic entry into the next European & Worldwide Competition group stages.
The main reasons for these new additions to the competition are
1) For losing qualifyers to gain some 'match practice' and experience of being in the competition rather than just playing 2 qualifying games and getting knocked out.
2) For losing qualifyers still to ultimately have a chance of winning some prize money and also automatic qualification for the next competition.
3) In the main group stages of the main competition, for there to be some value to finish 3rd in the group and keep things competitive right until the last matchday (some groups in the past have been decided early and ended up quite boring)
4) Obviously more of a 'reward' for those finishing 3rd and still to have a chance of winning some prize money and also automatic qualification for the next competition. Those who finish 3rd are likely to be reliable people who post every week, some might've been very unlucky not to go through to the KO phase.