I've played Top Eleven every day for the last five years (never imagined I would say that about any game in my life), and I understand fully how the star grading works.

My point is that, in this case, I appear to have*effectively been promoted despite finishing ninth - outside of the promotion places.

Knowing I wouldn't level up, I therefore set about strengthening my squad to prepare for the next season at the same level, buying up players who were at 89%. But this sudden and surprise situation has now made that strengthening quite pointless, and a waste of an awful lot of tokens spent on players who are now effectively downgraded to 79% - all without my knowledge.