The Belgian Provincial leagues are the lower leagues for Belgian football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

. It is divided into 9 regional league system

League system

A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport, usually with a system of promotion and relegation between consecutive levels of the hierarchy. They are often called pyramids due to their tendency to split into an increasing number of regional divisions the further down the pyramid one descends...

s (one for each province, but Flemish Brabant

Flemish Brabant

Flemish Brabant is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Hainaut and East Flanders. Flemish Brabant also completely surrounds the Brussels-Capital Region. Its capital is Leuven...

 and Walloon Brabant

Walloon Brabant

Walloon Brabant is a province of Wallonia in Belgium. It borders on the province of Flemish Brabant and the provinces of Liège, Namur and Hainaut . Its capital is Wavre...

 are merged and contain also the football teams from the Brussels Capital Region). Each league system is itself divided into 4 levels (except for Luxembourg where there are only 3). The number of leagues at each level depends on the province, but every province must have only one league at the top level. The best teams from the 9 first divisions can promote to the Belgian Promotion

Belgian Promotion

The Belgian Promotion is the lowest nationwide division in Belgian football. Since 1905, Promotion has been the name of the lowest nationwide level but it is the fourth one since 1952. There were already 4 leagues at the time . The champion of the Promotion is declared to be the winner of a...

, the lower and fourth level in the national leagues (either directly, or after playoff matches).

The first divisions

There are nine leagues at the first level of the provincial leagues:

• West Flanders Division One
• East Flanders
  East Flanders
  East Flanders is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and in Belgium on the provinces of Antwerp, Flemish Brabant , of Hainaut and of West Flanders...
  
   Division One
• Antwerp
  Antwerp (province)
  Antwerp is the northernmost province both of the Flemish Region, also called Flanders, and of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and the Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and East Flanders. Its capital is Antwerp which comprises the Port of Antwerp...
  
   Division One
• Limburg
  Limburg (Belgium)
  Limburg is the easternmost province of modern Flanders, which is one of the three main political and cultural sub-divisions of modern Belgium. It is located west of the river Meuse . It borders on the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Limburg and the Belgian provinces of Liège, Flemish Brabant...
  
   Division One
• Brabant Division One
• Hainaut Division One
• Namur
  Namur (province)
  Namur is a province of Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Walloon provinces of Hainaut, Walloon Brabant, Liège and Luxembourg in Belgium, and on France. Its capital is the city of Namur...
  
   Division One
• Luxembourg Division One
• Liège
  Liège (province)
  Liège is the easternmost province of Belgium and belongs to the Walloon Region. It is an area of French and German ethnicity. It borders on the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and in Belgium the provinces of Luxembourg, Namur, Walloon Brabant , and those of Flemish Brabant and Limburg . Its...
  
   Division One

The Brabant division one is named after the former Belgian province of Brabant that was split in 1995 to form the provinces of Wallon Brabant and Flemish Brabant.

The regular season

As of 2006, each division is composed of 16 clubs. The regular season is thus composed of 30 matchdays, generally played on Sunday. The nine league winners of the regular season qualify for the Promotion, as well as the second placed teams of the three most active provinces of the previous season, i.e. the provinces that counts the most active teams in the national and provincial leagues. Those twelve clubs replace the last three teams of each league of the Promotion. The six other second placed teams enter the promotion playoff on the second matchday.

As each team relegated from the Promotion must play in its own provincial first division, the number of newcomers in each provincial league may be different. There may then be more relegated teams than usual from the first division to the second division of each province, so that the total number of teams in the league stays constant.

Each provincial general assembly can decide to organize its own relegation playoff including teams from the first and the second divisions but there must be at least two teams directly relegated to the second division.

The promotion playoff

The promotion playoff is played in three matchdays. The first one is composed of two matches played by the four thirteenth placed teams of each league of the Promotion. The host team is the first to be drawn. The two losers enter the second matchday whereas the two winners remain in the Promotion. Four matches are played in the second matchday, between the six second placed teams of the provincial first divisions that did not qualify directly and the two Promotion teams that lost in the previous round. The four matches are grouped by two, and each of the Promotion teams play a match in a different group. The two winners of each group play a group final in the third matchday to decide the last two teams to promote.

The second divisions

There are three leagues at the second level in each province, except for Namur and West Flanders where there are only two. Each league is played between 16 teams. The system of promotion and relegation is set up by the annual provincial assembly.

The third divisions

The number of leagues at the third level in each province is as follows:

• West Flanders: 3
• East Flanders: 5
• Antwerp: 4
• Limburg: 4
• Brabant: 6
• Hainaut: 4
• Namur: 3 (14)
• Liège: 5 (15)
• Luxembourg: 5

Between brackets is the number of teams in each league if it is different from 16. The system of promotion and relegation is set up by the annual provincial assembly.

The fourth divisions

The fourth level is the lower level of provincial football, except for Luxembourg where the lower level is the third one. The system of promotion is set up by the annual provincial assembly.

External links

Belgian FA official website - Organisation of the provincial first divisions