Hahaha yeah, I've seen you guys around on the forum before and I remember you were the ones with the answers...
OK, so here's another one that's been bugging me...
I currently have the best record in my league (16-0) and my closest opponents are 2 wins behind me (14-2). I was curious so I checked how other V leagues look in Poland and I only came across a handful of other teams with an unbeaten record at this stage. I plan to win all remaining games till end of the season. Can I now safely assume that I will be promoted to league IV as part of the BOT cleanup I read about on the forum?
Or is it still unclear at this stage whether the cleanup will take place after season 26 and that's only decided by the end of the season when it becomes clear how many BOT's there are in higher divisions, etc.?
Would be really important for me to know asap so that I could plan the rest of this season accordingly.
Essentially, it will come down to how many extra bot teams are demoted down to V outside the course of normal relegation. For example, a bot team finishing 8th in a IV series will already be demoted to V, so that doesn't open a bot promotion slot. But if a team in IV goes bot pretty late and finishes in the top 5 (or wins a relegation series), then they would need to be demoted using the bot relegation and would open up one spot. Likewise, any team that goes bot in I, II, or III would normally demote down one level, but will again be dropped to V, will open up a promotion spot at V, and higher levels depending on how many extra levels they drop. For example:
Say the last placed team in the Big 8 in I.1 goes bot. They normally demote to II anyhow, so no extra II to I promotion is generated. However, they are then dumped from II to V in the bot cleanup, which means one additional team from III moves up to II, and this in turn opens up a promotion spot to III from IV and thus from IV to V.
So if you were to go 22-0, you'd have a very good chance of earning a promotion through the bot cleanup - not guaranteed, and maybe the guys in the Poland forum can give you a better idea of how many teams are usually opened up this way and what record/PD usually is required to earn it.
The only other advice I have is to remember that if you promote because of bot promotion, you don't get same season ticket boost as you would with a championship. That should be a strong, strong incentive to promote by winning the title, as the season ticket holder boost is a large part of why there's a "promotion bonus" to attendance when you go up, and having more season ticket holders is essentially having more money to develop your arena, players, and staff.