How Top 44 scoring works — with examples

The one rule

For each club, your score is the absolute difference between the position you predicted and the position it actually finishes (or is currently in). Sum the differences across every club. The lowest total wins.

Mathematically, if p_i is your predicted position for club i and a_i is its actual position, your total is Σ | p_i − a_i |.

Why it works

This scoring system — sometimes called Spearman's footrule distance — has three properties that make it a good fit for football:

• Fair to underdog picks. Picking a mid-table team to finish 8th and being one place off costs the same as picking the champion and being one place off.
• Rewards shape, not just headlines. Nailing the relegation zone matters just as much as nailing the top four.
• Impossible to game. There is no strategic advantage to hedging — the fewest errors always win.

Worked example: Premier League

Suppose you predicted the top six as: Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle, Chelsea.

Actual current top six: Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea, Tottenham, Newcastle.

• Man City: predicted 1, actual 3 → 2
• Arsenal: predicted 2, actual 1 → 1
• Liverpool: predicted 3, actual 2 → 1
• Tottenham: predicted 4, actual 5 → 1
• Newcastle: predicted 5, actual 6 → 1
• Chelsea: predicted 6, actual 4 → 2

Top six subtotal: 8 points. Your full score adds the same calculation for the other 14 clubs.

Worked example: Championship

The Championship has 24 clubs, so scores tend to be higher than the Premier League simply because there are more chances to be a few places off. A very strong Championship score at the end of a season is anything under 40; a typical mid-table player will finish somewhere between 60 and 90.

How All 44 works

All 44 is not a separate ranking out of 44 — it is simply your Premier League score added to your Championship score. Each club is only ever compared with the clubs in its own division: Premier League positions count as 1–20 and Championship positions count as 21–44, so predicting a club to win the Championship (slot 21) when they finish bottom (slot 44) costs 23 points, exactly as it would in the Championship-only game.

What a "good" score looks like

• A perfect prediction: 0. Nobody has ever achieved this.
• An excellent full-Top-44 total: under 60.
• A solid entry: 60–100.
• Everyone above 100 is still very much in the game — one dramatic run of form can shuffle scores rapidly.

How the live score updates

Once the season starts, your score updates every morning after the overnight refresh. The dashboard shows the real league table with your predicted position in brackets next to each club. Green means you have that club in exactly the right spot; amber means one place off.

Frequently missed nuances

• The score uses current position, so scores swing early in the season and settle as more games are played.
• Points deductions (for financial breaches, etc.) affect the real table and therefore affect your score. This is intentional — it's the real season.
• If a competition uses a play-off (as the Championship does for promotion), only the final league position counts, not the play-off outcome.

Ready to play? Create a free account and lock in your prediction before the season kicks off.