One late goal. Five minutes of stoppage time. A decade-long wait for top-flight football, now finally over. Hull City’s promotion to the Premier League via the Championship play-off final at Wembley on May 23, 2026 is the kind of story that screenwriters would struggle to sell — too many twists, too many obstacles, too improbable an ending. Yet here we are.
From relegation scare to Wembley glory : the Tigers’ improbable journey
Cast your mind back just twelve months. Hull City survived relegation to League One on the final day of last season with a 1-1 draw at Portsmouth’s Fratton Park. Martin Hodge, the club’s head of recruitment who had only just been appointed, sat in the stands that day and openly questioned his decision to join. “I thought, ‘What have I joined ?'” he later admitted to BBC Radio Humberside. Fifty-two years in football, stints with Wales and major clubs across the world — and that afternoon at Fratton Park nearly broke him.
Fast forward to a boiling hot Saturday at Wembley, and Hodge was watching Oli McBurnie’s stoppage-time winner against Middlesbrough send the Tigers into England’s top division. The transformation is, frankly, staggering. Hull finished 21st in the Championship last season. They entered 2025-26 under a transfer embargo — imposed because of late payments to other clubs — which restricted the squad to free transfers and loan signings only.
Despite that, Hodge assembled a competitive group. Experienced Championship figures like defender John Egan and striker McBurnie proved pivotal. The squad punched well above its weight throughout the campaign, finishing in the play-off places and then defeating Millwall in the semi-final — a side that had ended the regular season three places and 10 points above them in the table. Underdogs ? Absolutely. But Hull made a habit of thriving under that label.
| Season | Championship finish | Key moment |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 21st (survived relegation) | 1-1 draw at Portsmouth on final day |
| 2025-26 | Play-off winner | McBurnie winner vs Middlesbrough at Wembley |
Owner Acun Ilicali described it as “the best day of my life.” The Turkish media mogul, who has built businesses from scratch, said football operates on a different emotional plane entirely. During those final five minutes of stoppage time at Wembley, he admitted he “couldn’t move” — paralysed by the thought of a late Middlesbrough equaliser. His relief when the final whistle blew was visible, raw and completely understandable.
Sergej Jakirovic : the coach who rewrote his own narrative
For Sergej Jakirovic, this promotion carries a very specific weight. The 49-year-old Bosnian had won league titles in both Bosnia and Croatia before a brief, difficult spell in Turkey. Most British fans, if they recognised his name at all, knew him from a single brutal night : his Dinamo Zagreb side conceded nine goals to Bayern Munich in the 2024-25 Champions League group stage, losing 9-2. He was sacked days after that humiliation.
Coming to England felt like a calculated gamble — on himself. And it paid off spectacularly. His approach is worth understanding :
- A relaxed dressing-room atmosphere that encouraged player confidence
- Tactical flexibility, evidenced by the pivot from preparing for Southampton to facing Middlesbrough in just four days
- Clear communication — after the final, he joked that Southampton may have watched Hull train, but “sometimes we are too bad” to learn from
- Genuine emotional investment : “When Oli scored I was thinking, I am dreaming and this is a movie“
The Southampton element deserves brief context. Spygate — the scandal that led to Southampton’s expulsion from the play-offs — forced Hull to completely overhaul their preparation for the final. Jakirovic had called his players “collateral damage” from that saga. Four days to replan against a different opponent, at Wembley, with a Premier League place on the line. Most coaches would have used it as an excuse. Jakirovic used it as motivation.
While the players will celebrate in Las Vegas — a trip personally promised by Ilicali — the manager will spend his break on Croatia’s Adriatic coast with his family. “They go to Vegas. You know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. This is not for me,” he said with a grin. That tells you something about the man : no ego, total clarity about who he is and what he values.
What Premier League promotion really means for Hull City now
The celebrations will fade. The Vegas stories will stay confidential, apparently. Then comes the real work. Hull City’s Premier League preparation starts almost immediately, and the challenges are substantial. The transfer embargo has been lifted by promotion, meaning Hodge now has a significantly larger budget to recruit. That budget will need careful deployment — the gap between Championship and Premier League quality has never been wider in terms of finances.
Ilicali had threatened legal action if Middlesbrough — reinstated into the play-offs after the Southampton expulsion — had beaten Hull and taken the promotion spot. That particular fight no longer needs fighting. But the broader Spygate fallout is far from settled, and Hull’s lawyers will likely remain busy regardless.
For the football itself, Jakirovic has proven he can build a cohesive, resilient squad from limited resources. That skill becomes even more valuable when the resources increase. The Tigers will need smart signings, not just expensive ones. Hodge, with his 52 years of experience, understands this better than most. The work that kept Hull in the Championship last May, and delivered a play-off title this May, is the same disciplined thinking that must now navigate the Premier League’s brutal demands.
Wherever you sit on Hull City’s chances of surviving the top flight, you cannot deny the scale of what this group — players, coach, owner and recruitment staff — have built in just twelve remarkable months. From Fratton Park despair to Wembley triumph. The Tigers didn’t just pounce on their promotion chance. They earned every second of it.
