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Fourteen clubs came up into Europe’s big five leagues for 2026-27 — history says about nine will still be there next summer. Every promotion since 2011-12 counted in our own match data, every newcomer priced by our player-value model, and fourteen dated survival calls we will grade in May. Promoted clubs, explained.
By the Oddsivio team·12 min read
Do promoted clubs stay up? More often than the folklore says. Since 2011-12, 207 clubs have been promoted into the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 — and 129 of them, 62%, were still in the top flight a year later. Promotion is not a death sentence. It is not even, on average, a coin flip.
But the average is doing a lot of hiding. Spain keeps almost three of every four newcomers; England and Italy send nearly half straight back down. And the last three Premier League seasons have been a different sport altogether. Here is the whole picture, from our own database of every big-five match since 2010:
La Liga — 33 of 45 promoted clubs stayed up (73%). This season's newcomers: Racing Santander, Deportivo La Coruña, Málaga.
Ligue 1 — 27 of 40 stayed up (68%). This season: Troyes, Le Mans.
Bundesliga — 21 of 32 stayed up (66%). This season: Schalke 04, Elversberg, Paderborn.
Premier League — 24 of 45 stayed up (53%). This season: Coventry City, Ipswich Town, Hull City.
Serie A — 24 of 45 stayed up (53%). This season: Venezia, Frosinone, Monza.
All five leagues — 129 of 207 stayed up: 62%.
Three notes on how we counted, so you can argue with the numbers rather than the method. "Stayed up" means the club was still in that league the following season — in Germany and France that includes surviving via the relegation play-off. Germany and France promote two clubs plus a play-off winner, which is why their columns are smaller. And the abandoned 2019-20 Ligue 1 season counts as played, because it was.
Squad values below are Oddsivio estimated values — point estimates from our player-value model, in euros, from the 10 August weekly run, the same numbers as our five season previews. Market figures are the mid-August implied probabilities we translated in those previews — transparent market analysis, not advice.
England: the hardest league — and it's getting harder
The Premier League's all-time rate in our data, 24 of 45 (53%), is already the joint-worst of the five. The recent trend is far uglier: two of the last nine promoted clubs survived. The entire class of 2023-24 went straight back down. So did the entire class of 2024-25. In fifteen years of data across five leagues — 75 promoted classes — a full wipeout has happened twice, and both were the Premier League, back to back.
One folklore check while we're here: the famous 40-point survival target is wrong, at least for newcomers. In our fifteen seasons, no promoted club that reached 35 points went down — and none survived without reaching it. Survivors averaged 44.6 points; the relegated averaged 25.9 — most doomed newcomers aren't edged out in May, they're gone by March.
The money explains the trend. The median Premier League squad in our model is worth about €565m. Coventry arrive at €160m (28% of that), Ipswich at €134m (24%), Hull at €101m (18%) — and our Premier League preview already put on record that the €109m gap between the best-resourced newcomer and the cheapest incumbent is the widest our model has measured.
Will Coventry City stay up?
Our call: no — but they're the likeliest of the three to prove us wrong. Frank Lampard's side won the Championship by eleven points and start their first top-flight season in 25 years at champions Arsenal on opening night (Wikipedia). They are the best-resourced of the trio at €160m — which still buys the eighteenth most valuable squad in the league. The market prices them near 55% to go down; our value table agrees with the direction. Promoted champions do beat the rate historically — but England's last three seasons have stopped caring about history.
Will Ipswich Town stay up?
Our call: no. Ipswich know exactly what this fight looks like: they were promoted in 2024, and our data shows that season ending with 22 points and nineteenth place. They bounced straight back as runners-up — then promotion architect Kieran McKenna resigned in June, and Gary O'Neil inherits the return (Wikipedia). A €134m squad, nineteenth of twenty by value, priced near 55% to drop by the market. The club's own recent history is the argument: same gap, same outcome.
Will Hull City stay up?
Our call: no. Ollie McBurnie's 95th-minute Wembley winner ended a nine-year exile (ESPN), and the club broke its transfer record for Nobel Mendy (ESPN). But at €101m Hull own the smallest squad value in our entire 2026-27 Premier League table — 18% of the league median — and the market makes them its most-fancied club for the drop in England, at roughly three-in-four. Hull have been here twice in our data: survived in 2013-14, went down with 34 points in 2016-17 — and no promoted club in our records has ever gone down with more.
The honest footnote from the preview series still applies: calling all three down is a genuinely strong claim — the market's own numbers multiply out to a clean sweep only about one time in four. We made that call anyway, and this piece grades with it.
Spain: the softest landing in Europe
La Liga has kept 33 of 45 newcomers — 73%, the best rate of the five — and it has never once relegated a full promoted class in our data. Four times in fifteen seasons, all three survived. It helps that Spain's promoted clubs are often not its poorest: this season's trio lands 10th, 13th and 19th in our value table, and the market's relegation queue is the most compressed in Europe — its most-fancied club for the drop sits at only ~45%.
Will Racing Santander stay up?
Our call: yes — we already put it in writing.Our La Liga preview made "Racing stay up" one of its five graded calls: the Segunda champions (82 points, first top-flight season in 14 years) bring the tenth most valuable squad in the league at €166m — above the league median, above half the division — with Sergio Canales back home leading it (OneFootball). The market has them near 43% to drop; our model says mid-table material. They opened by leading Villarreal 2-0 before drawing 2-2 (ESPN) — one point, and one early hint the model isn't imagining things.
Will Deportivo La Coruña stay up?
Our call: yes. The snapshot is misleading here, and we'd rather explain it than hide it: Deportivo's €118m row is the lowest of Spain's trio, but it predates the most aggressive window any promoted club ran — a net +€35m of model value, the biggest of Spain's newcomers, headlined by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (beIN Sports) and Angeliño (asroma.com). Counted with the window, the squad sits near €153m — Málaga's neighbourhood, not Getafe's. The market agrees, pricing Depor the safest of the three at ~33%.
Will Málaga stay up?
Our call: yes — the boldest survival call in this piece. The market disagrees with us: Málaga, up via the play-off (Wikipedia), are its most-fancied club for the Spanish drop at roughly 45%. But our value table has their €148m squad thirteenth in the league — above six incumbents — after a +€20m window, in the league that historically forgives newcomers most. Somebody has to fill Spain's three relegation places; our data says look below Málaga, not at them. If all three Spanish newcomers survive, it will be the fifth time in sixteen seasons. That is the call.
Italy: England's equal, without the noise
Serie A relegates newcomers at the same rate as the Premier League — 24 of 45, 53% — it just does it quietly. And it is uniquely unkind at the top end: in fifteen seasons, only three promoted clubs have finished in the top half (Atalanta in 2011-12, Verona in 2013-14, Como in 2024-25). Italy has also never kept a full promoted trio in our data. This season's twist: all three newcomers — Venezia, Frosinone, Monza — are one-season bouncebacks from the 2024-25 relegations (Wikipedia), so all three have recent evidence to be judged on.
Will Venezia stay up?
Our call: yes — against their own history, and we said so first. Venezia's record in our data is two promotions, two immediate returns (20th in 2021-22, 19th in 2024-25). We're calling the third attempt different because the squad genuinely is: €162m, thirteenth in Serie A by value, above five incumbents, after a window that sold Issa Doumbia (Yahoo) and still got stronger through record buy Akor Adams (Football Italia). The market prices them ~38% to drop — fourth-likeliest, behind an incumbent. Our Serie A preview made "Venezia stay up" a graded call; this piece inherits it.
Will Frosinone stay up?
Our call: no. Frosinone are the cleanest pattern in this entire dataset: three promotions in our records — 2015-16, 2018-19, 2023-24 — and three immediate relegations. The fourth attempt arrives with the eighteenth squad by value (€126m) and the market's worst number in Italy, roughly 75% to go down. The club deserves real credit for coming straight back up as runners-up; nothing in our data suggests the fourth landing goes differently.
Will Monza stay up?
Our call: no. Monza's first promotion produced the counter-example — eleventh place in 2022-23, one of only a handful of top-half newcomer finishes Italy has allowed. But that Monza had Berlusconi-era money; this one, promoted via the play-off (Football Italia) and rebuilt under Ivan Jurić (Fox Sports), carries the cheapest squad in all of Serie A at €89m — 47% of the league median, below even Frosinone. The market says ~64%. The value table says harder than that.
Germany: two trapdoors and a play-off
The Bundesliga keeps about two of every three newcomers (21 of 32, 66%), softened by the play-off that gives sixteenth place a second chance. One honesty note before the calls, the same one our Bundesliga preview led with: our model barely prices Schalke and Elversberg — their squads spent last season in a division our value coverage doesn't yet reach properly, so we won't invent numbers for them. Paderborn, by contrast, is fully priced, and the picture isn't kind.
Will Schalke 04 stay up?
Our call: yes. The 2. Bundesliga champions return after three years (Wikipedia), and their last promotion — 2022-23 in our data — ended in an immediate return. So why call survival? Because this is the rare case where we can't out-argue the market with a value number we don't have: the market prices Schalke at just ~29% to drop, below incumbent Köln — an extraordinary vote for a promoted club, resting on scale, squad continuity under Miron Muslić and a 70-point title season. Where we have no model number, we say so and defer — on the record.
Will Elversberg stay up?
Our call: no. Elversberg are the story of the German season — the 59th club in Bundesliga history, in the top flight for the first time ever after a debut-promotion runner-up campaign (bundesliga.com). They are also the only club in Germany the market prices as more likely down than up, at roughly 56%. Our model can't price the squad; the market and the budget arithmetic point one way. We'd love to grade this one wrong.
Will Paderborn stay up?
Our call: no. Paderborn won the play-off against Wolfsburg to come up (bundesliga.com) — their third promotion in our data. The first two, 2014-15 and 2019-20, both ended in eighteenth place. The value table sees the same squad-depth problem the history does: at €69m, Paderborn's is the smallest priced squad in the league, 32% of the €214m median among clubs we can price, and they sold Mika Baur to Celtic in August (Sky Sports). The market's ~46% is, if anything, polite.
France: the kindest arithmetic
Ligue 1 keeps 27 of 40 (68%), promotes only two clubs, and gives sixteenth place the barrage — three separate cushions. Both of this season's newcomers, though, arrive unpriced by our model for the same edition-timing reason as Schalke and Elversberg, disclosed in full in our Ligue 1 preview. So both calls below lean on history, budgets and the market rather than our value table — flagged, not hidden.
Will Troyes stay up?
Our call: yes — narrowly, with the barrage in the fine print. Troyes are our data's great yo-yo: four promotions since 2012, three immediate returns, one survival (2021-22). What's different now is the institution — the Ligue 2 title, City Football Group ownership, and the summer's most revealing sale, nineteen-year-old Mathys Detourbet to Manchester City for a reported €25m (our Ligue 1 preview has the full window). The market separates the pair: Troyes ~44% to drop — with incumbent Angers wedged between the two newcomers — against Le Mans' ~52%. In the league of three cushions, we take the resourced club to find one of them. Surviving via the barrage counts; we will grade it that way.
Will Le Mans stay up?
Our call: no. Le Mans return as runners-up after sixteen years away, with what is projected to be the smallest budget in the division and a free transfer as the flagship signing (our Ligue 1 preview). They are the market's most-fancied club for the French drop at roughly 52% — the only Ligue 1 club priced likelier down than up. France's 68% base rate is the second-kindest in Europe, and we're still calling against it here, because base rates describe average newcomers and nothing about this budget is average.
Fourteen calls, one honest tension
Add them up: we are calling six survivors from fourteen promoted clubs — Racing Santander, Deportivo, Málaga, Venezia, Schalke, Troyes — in a dataset whose base rate says to expect about nine. We want that tension on the record, because it is the analysis: history says 62% survive, but history's average promoted club was not walking into the 2026-27 Premier League with a squad worth a quarter of the league median. Most of our pessimism is concentrated in England, where the last three seasons have run at two survivors in nine, and in the thinnest promoted squads our model has ever priced.
The full slate, dated 17 August 2026, graded publicly when the last of the five leagues finishes on 30 May 2027 — hits and misses alike, the same way our prediction engines grade themselves every week:
Coventry City — go down
Ipswich Town — go down
Hull City — go down
Racing Santander — stay up
Deportivo La Coruña — stay up
Málaga — stay up
Venezia — stay up
Frosinone — go down
Monza — go down
Schalke 04 — stay up
Elversberg — go down
Paderborn — go down
Troyes — stay up
Le Mans — go down
Follow the fourteen with us
Every one of these clubs gets a plain-English, pre-match read on its matches all season, every squad value above updates weekly on Player values, and every probability our engines publish is graded in public on Predictions. For the club-by-club view of all five leagues, start at the season capstone — and check back at the end of May, when we grade all fourteen calls whether they aged well or not.