Why EFL Championship's promotion play-offs final will start one minute late?

Sunderland and Sheffield United will face each other in the play-off final.

The EFL Championship promotion play-offs final for the Premier League will begin at an unconventional time, starting exactly one minute past the hour. The match will be settled at Wembley Stadium this weekend.

To battle for the last Premier League 2025-26 season’s slot, Sunderland and Sheffield United will first meet in the capital. The game is scheduled to begin at 3:01 p.m. GMT (7:31 p.m. IST).

Charlton Athletic and Leyton Orient will play for the opportunity to advance to the EFL Championship at 1:01 p.m. on Sunday, while AFC Wimbledon and Walsall’s EFL League Two play-off is scheduled for the same time on Monday.

In an effort to increase awareness of their “Every Minute Matters” initiative, which encourages football fans to learn CPR, the EFL Championship also adopted the same one-minute delay timings for last season’s play-off finals.

Over 270,000 football fans learned CPR through the British Heart Foundation’s online resource, RevivR, during the previous season’s campaign, according to an EFL Championship statement. The enrollment goal for this season has been raised to 360,000 following the campaign’s successful debut.

Following his collapse with atrial fibrillation during Luton’s 2023 EFL Championship play-off final matchup with Coventry City, which the Hatters won via penalty shootout, Luton captain and Wales international Tom Lockyer serves as an advocate for the project. Later that year, he went into cardiac arrest while playing for Burnley in the Premier League.

He said: “I was just one of the more than 30,000 people who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest every year in the UK. I am lucky to be alive today, but the reality is that less than 1 in 10 people usually survive, which is why it’s vital that we continue to raise awareness.

“The symbolic kick-off times are the perfect way to make our lifesaving message impossible to ignore.”

This weekend, Wembley Stadium will host the League One, League Two, and Championship playoff finals.

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