Chelsea have been named winners of the Women’s Super League title on a points-per-game ratio, while Liverpool have been relegated.
When the season was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic in March, Chelsea were one point behind leaders Manchester City with a game in hand.
Aston Villa, who were top of the Championship, will replace the WSL’s bottom club Liverpool next season.
The Reds said they are “disappointed” with how the season has been concluded.
It was decided on 25 May that the season would end with immediate effect, with 45 games outstanding in the WSL and 36 in the Championship.
The Football Association board reached a “majority decision” to decide final positions on a “basic points-per-game basis”, with promotion and relegation “determined on sporting merit”.
Everton and Tottenham Hotspur are the only other two clubs to change positions in the top flight compared to how the table looked at the time of the suspension, with Everton moving above Spurs into sixth place.
Chelsea and Manchester City will be England’s representatives in next season’s Women’s Champions League.
For Chelsea, who were unbeaten throughout the league campaign, the title is their third in the WSL era, and their second in the space of three seasons.
They also claimed victory in this year’s Continental League Cup final, beating Arsenal at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground.
They have ended up on top of the table after one of the closest, three-way title races in recent years, with just 0.2 points per game separating them and last year’s champions, third-placed Arsenal.
None of the top three were beaten by any of the league’s other nine sides this term, but Chelsea enjoyed the best head-to-head record from the matches involving the trio, all six of which had been played before the season was curtailed.
Emma Hayes’ side did the double over Arsenal and beat Manchester City at home, before being involved in a dramatic 3-3 draw with City in February.
The success gives Chelsea boss Hayes a seventh major trophy with the club, including two Women’s FA Cups and 2017’s transitional Spring Series league.-BBC
