The 2020–21 Belgian First Division A was the 118th season of top-tier football in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. As part of a proposal by the Jupiler Pro League's board of directors accepted by the General Assembly on 15 May 2020, the 2020–21 season would involve shortened playoffs due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Only the top four teams would play for the title, while teams five through eight would play for the remaining ticket into Europe. The league fixtures were announced on 8 July 2020.

Club Brugge (), known simply as Club Brugge (in English also: ''Club Bruges''), is a Belgian professional football club based in Bruges, Belgium. It was founded in 1891 and its home ground is the Jan Breydel Stadium, which has a capacity of 29,042. They pl ...

successfully defended their title from the previous season, finishing level on points in the title play-offs with Racing Genk, as regular season runners-up Royal Antwerp's challenge faded.

Team changes

Waasland-Beveren Sportkring Beveren (SK Beveren) is a Belgian professional association football club based in Beveren, East Flanders. The club is affiliated with the founded number 4068 and has yellow and blue as its colours. The team was founded in 1936 in H ...

were originally relegated to the

Belgian First Division B The Challenger Pro League, previously known as 1B Pro League is the second-highest division in the Football in Belgium, Belgian football Belgian football league system, league system, one level below the Belgian Pro League. It was created by the ...

, as they were the bottom-placed team when the

2019–20 Belgian First Division A The 2019–20 Belgian First Division A (officially known as Jupiler Pro League) was the 117th season of top-tier football in Belgium. On 2 April 2020, the Jupiler Pro League's board of directors agreed to propose to cancel the season early durin ...

stopped prematurely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, following legal proceedings, they remained in the top-flight, and instead, the league was expanded to 18 teams, with both

OH Leuven Oh, OH, or Oh! is an interjection, often proclaiming surprise (emotion), surprise. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Albums * Oh! (Girls' Generation album), ''Oh!'' (Girls' Generation album), 2010 * Oh! (ScoLoHoFo album), ''Oh!'' (S ...

and

Beerschot Koninklijke Beerschot Voetbalclub Antwerpen (), or simply Beerschot, is a Belgian professional football club located in Antwerp, that competes in the top tier Pro League after promotion from second tier in 2023–24 season. In 2013, KFCO Wil ...

being promoted (normally only one of them would have gained promotion). Technically, under its current form and owners, Beerschot will make its debut in the top tier of Belgian football, although in reality two teams with the same identity have played at the top level: Beerschot VAC (81 seasons, last in 1990–91) and

Beerschot AC Koninklijke Beerschot Antwerpen Club (), simply known as Beerschot AC, was a Belgian football club based in southern Antwerp. Beerschot played in the Belgian Pro League from 1999–2000 (as Germinal Beerschot) until 2012–13, when they were ...

(until its bankruptcy at the end of the 2012–13 season, and known as Germinal Beerschot from 1999 until 2011). OH Leuven returned to the top tier after an absence of four seasons, when they dropped to the last place on the ultimate matchday of the 2015–16 season.

Format change

With now 18 instead of 16 teams, the format has changed somewhat. While the season still starts with an initial round-robin phase in which all teams play each other twice, the end of season play-offs have been shortened temporarily and for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons only. The title playoffs will now only be played by the top four teams (instead of six) and the Europa play-offs will now be played by the teams finishing fifth through eight (instead of all teams finishing below 6th). As a result, for all teams finishing below 8th, the season will be over upon completion of the round-robin phase, with the team in last position being relegated. One exception is the team finishing in 17th position, as this team will play a promotion-relegation play off against the 2nd-place finisher in the

2020–21 Belgian First Division B The 2020–21 season of the Belgian First Division B began in August 2020 and ended in April 2021. Union SG became champions on 13 March 2021, returning to the highest level of Belgian football for the first time since the 1972–73 season. Te ...

, with the winner playing in the

2021–22 Belgian First Division A The 2021–22 Belgian Pro League (officially known as Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons) was the 119th season of top-flight football in Belgium. Club Brugge completed their first league Championship hat-trick since the 1970s by edgin ...

Teams

Stadiums and locations

Number of teams by provinces

Personnel and kits

Managerial changes

Regular season

League table

Results

Play-offs

Play-Off I

Play-Off II

The points obtained during the regular season were halved (and rounded up) before the start of the playoff. As a result, the teams started with the following points before the playoff: Oostende 27, Standard 25, Gent 25 and Mechelen 24. The points of Oostende and Gent were rounded up, therefore in case of any ties on points at the end of the playoffs, the half point will be deducted for these teams.

European competition play-offs

Originally, the fourth-placed team of the play-offs I (or third-placed team if the regular season winners finish fourth) and the first-placed team of the play-offs II would play two home-and-away matches to determine the Europa Conference League play-off winner, which would qualify for the

second qualifying round The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League. However, since

Genk Genk () is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city located in the Belgian Provinces of Belgium, province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality comprises only the town of Genk itself. It ...

, winners of the

2020–21 Belgian Cup The 2020–21 Belgian Cup, called the Croky Cup for sponsorship reasons, was the 66th season of Belgium's annual football cup competition. The competition began on 2 August 2020 and ended with the final on 25 April 2021. The winners of the competi ...

, finished in the regular season top four and qualified for play-offs I, this guaranteed that all four teams of play-offs I would qualify for European competitions. As a result, the play-off final was not played, and the first-placed team of the play-offs II, KAA Gent, qualified for the

of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League.

Promotion-Relegation play-off

The team finishing in 17th place competes in a two-legged match with the runner-up of the

, with the aggregate winner to play in the

, while the losing team will take part in the

2021–22 Belgian First Division B The 2021–22 season of the Belgian First Division B began in August 2021 and ended in April 2022, with Westerlo winning the title by a considerable margin over RWDM, the latter losing the promotion play-off and hence not promoted together with We ...

. On 11 April 2021,

Seraing Seraing (; ) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city of Wallonia located in the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Boncelles, Jemeppe-sur-M ...

from the Belgian First Division B qualified for the promotion-relegation playoff as a loss by

Lommel Lommel () is a municipality and city in the Belgian province of Limburg. Lying in the Kempen, it has about 34,000 inhabitants and is part of the arrondissement of Maaseik. Besides the residential town, Lommel also has a number of nature reserv ...

against

Union SG Royale Union Saint-Gilloise (), also known as Union Saint-Gilloise, Union SG or simply Union, is a Belgian professional football club from Brussels based in Forest. Founded in 1897 in the neighbouring Saint-Gilles, the club has played its home ...

meant Seraing could no longer be overtaken for second place. On 8 May 2021,

was promoted to the

after a 6–3 aggregate win in the two-legged series and

was relegated to the

. Seraing won 6–3 on aggregate.

Season statistics

Top scorers - regular season only

Top assists

Awards

Annual awards

Notes

References

External links

*
Jupiler Pro League official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belgian First Division A 2020-21 2020-21 2020–21 in European association football leagues 1