Hull City v Middlesbrough Championship Play-Off Final Odds

In a remarkable turn of events, Middlesbrough will now join Hull City in the 2025/26 Championship play-off final.

The EFL released a statement to confirm that Southampton have been expelled from the contest after admitting to breaching regulations related to the unauthorised filming of other clubs’ training sessions.

Despite the Saints' antics, Boro managed to hold Tonda Eckert's side to a 0-0 draw at the Riverside Stadium, before falling to a 2-1 defeat in the reverse leg. Their St Mary's defeat will be a distant memory now, however, as they embark on a Championship play-off final against Hull City on Saturday 23rd May.

While Hull's route to the final was smooth sailing compared to that of Boro's, they failed to gain an advantage in their home leg against Millwall and travelled to The Den for the reverse fixture.

It was goalless at half time after a cagey opening 45 minutes, but goals from Mohamed Belloumi and Joe Gelhardt helped Sergej Jakirović's side to a 2-0 victory.

It's almost unheard of that a team only learns their Championship play-off final opponent in the days leading up to the fixture, but that is the case for the Tigers and they'll be looking to return to the Premier League for the first time since the 2016/17 season.

Middlesbrough are the 11/10 favourites to emerge victorious on Saturday afternoon and join Coventry City and Ipswich Town in securing promotion to the top-flight.

Despite losing the play-off semi-finals to Southampton, Hellberg was praised for his fluid and possession-focused style of football and many had suggested that Boro would earn automatic promotion with ease next campaign.

While, irrespective of the EFL's hearing, both Middlesbrough and Southampton knew that Hull City would await them in the event that they made the play-off final, the Tigers are arguably disadvantaged by the fact that, before Tuesday 19th May, they were likely preparing for a clash with the Saints, not Boro.

With that said, Hull simply can't afford to head to the capital with a victim mentality and Jakirovic will know that.

They endured a poor end to the Championship season, winning just one of their last seven league games, but they head into the final off the back of a 2-0 win against Millwall and they'll be looking to shut out the noise ahead of the most valuable single football match in club football.

Hull City v Middlesbrough Odds

(Odds will display when markets are available).

Any odds displayed were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.