2022.12.20

2023 J1 Promotion Play-Offs - Tournament and Match Format

The J.League can now announce that the tournament and match formats for the 2023 J1 Promotion Play-Offs have been decided as follows.

【Conditions of Participation】
■ The clubs ranked 3rd to 6th in the 2023 MEIJI YASUDA J2 LEAGUE season standings will participate in the J1 Promotion Play-Offs.
■ If a club from among those ranked 3rd to 6th in the J2 season standings does not have a J1 club license, the clubs ranked 7th and below in the J2 annual standings are not permitted to replace that club in the J1 Promotion Play-Offs.

Tournament	Date	Tournament format	Match format
J1 Promotion Play-Offs	● Semi-finals Saturday, November 25 or Sunday, November 26   ● Final Saturday, December 2	(1)     If four clubs participate: Knock-out tournament with single-match fixtures (3 matches in total) The clubs ranked 3rd to 6th in the MEIJI YASUDA J2 LEAGUE will play off as follows: （3rd vs. 6th, 4th vs. 5th）   Venue： Home stadium of the higher ranked club   (2)     If three clubs participate: Knock-out tournament with 1 match each (2 matches in total) The three clubs meeting the conditions of participation ranked 3rd to 6th in the MEIJI YASUDA J2 LEAGUE will play in a tournament. The lowest two clubs out of the above three clubs will play in the Semi-finals, while the winner advances to the Final.   Venue： Home stadium of the higher ranked club   (3)     If two clubs participate: The two clubs meet the conditions of participation from ranked 3rd to 6th in the MEIJI YASUDA J2 LEAGUE will play in the Final.   Venue： Home stadium of the higher ranked club   (4)     If only one club participates: The club meeting the conditions of participation will automatically be declared the winner of promotion.	<Match format and determination of winners>   In case a 90-minute match (two halves of 45 minutes each) is played and no winner is decided, the club with the higher ranking in the J2 season standings will be declared the winner to ensure the importance of the annual table.   The winner will then be promoted to J1 for the 2024 season.

※ This schedule is current as of December 20, 2022 and may be subject to change.

■ If neither of the two J2 clubs ranked top in the annual standings has a J1 club license, ① to ④ below are applied.
* Applies only to the 2023 season as the number of J1 League clubs will increase to 20 clubs from the 2024 season.
① If the four clubs have a J1 club license, the two clubs that win the Semi-final will be promoted to J1.
② If the three clubs have J1 club license, a match will be played between the lower two clubs in the J2 annual standings, and the winner and the remaining one club will be promoted to J1.
③ If the two clubs have a J1 club license, two clubs will be promoted to J1.
④ The Board of Directors will separately determine the handling of situations not stipulated above.

* If one of the J2 clubs that meet the requirements for automatic promotion does not receive a J1 club license, the club with the lowest annual ranking in J1 will not be relegated to J2 and the playoffs will be held according to the tournament format in the table above.