The Belgian Division 2, commonly referred to as simply Tweede Afdeling (in Dutch) or Division 2 (in French) is the fourth-highest division in the Belgian football

league system A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport. They are often called pyramids, due to their tendency to split into an increasing number of regional divisions further down the system. League systems of some sort are used in many sports in ...

, one level below the

Belgian National Division 1 The Belgian National Division 1, commonly referred to as simply Eerste Nationale (in Dutch) or Nationale 1 (in French) is a semi-professional and the third-highest division in the Belgian football league system, one level below the Belgian First ...

. It was created by the

Royal Belgian Football Association The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA; ; ; ) is the governing body of football in Belgium. It was a founding member of FIFA in 1904 and UEFA in 1954 and was based in Brussels, not far from the King Baudouin Stadium. Since October 2021, the ...

in 2016, replacing the

Belgian Third Division The Belgian Third Division ( nl, Derde klasse, french: Division III) was the third highest level in Football in Belgium, Belgian football. It had two leagues of 18 teams each (Belgian Third Division A, A and Belgian Third Division B, B) at the sam ...

and named ''Belgian Second Amateur Division'' until the 2019–20 before it was renamed due to the negative connotation of the word ''amateur''. The division consists of three separate leagues with 16 teams each, two of these leagues consist of teams playing with a license from the ''Voetbalfederatie Vlaanderen'' (VFV, the Dutch speaking wing of the

RBFA The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA; ; ; ) is the governing body of football in Belgium. It was a founding member of FIFA in 1904 and UEFA in 1954 and was based in Brussels, not far from the King Baudouin Stadium. Since October 2021, ...

) and one with teams with a license from the ''Association des Clubs Francophones de Football'' (ACFF, the French-speaking wing of the RBFA).

History

The Belgian Second Amateur Division was created in 2016 as successor of the

following an overhaul of the

Belgian football league system The Belgian football league system is a series of interconnected leagues for club football in Belgium. Men's system The league system underwent restructuring which was approved by the Royal Belgian Football Association. One important step was the ...

which saw the number of professional clubs reduced to 24. As a result, from the third level and below only amateur clubs remain. The two remaining levels above the Belgian Provincial leagues were reformed into three amateur levels, namely the

Belgian First Amateur Division The Belgian National Division 1, commonly referred to as simply Eerste Nationale (in Dutch) or Nationale 1 (in French) is a semi-professional and the third-highest division in the Belgian football league system, one level below the Belgian First ...

, the Belgian Second Amateur Division and the

Belgian Third Amateur Division The Belgian Division 3, commonly referred to as simply Derde Afdeling (in Dutch) or Division 3 (in French) is the fifth-highest division in the Belgian football league system, one level below the Belgian Division 2. It was created by the Royal ...

. As a result, the Belgian Provincial leagues dropped to the sixth level of the league system. In 2020 the levels three to five were renamed to

, Belgian Division 2, and

Belgian Division 3 The Belgian Division 3, commonly referred to as simply Derde Afdeling (in Dutch) or Division 3 (in French) is the fifth-highest division in the Belgian football league system, one level below the Belgian Division 2. It was created by the Royal Be ...

respectively.

Competition format

In each of the three separate leagues, the season is a regular round-robin tournament with 16 teams. The winners of each league are directly promoted to the

. Besides these three promoting teams, one additional promotion is possible: for this twelve other teams are in contention as four teams in each league qualify for the end of season playoffs. The eight teams from the VFV side are grouped together to compete in a VFV playoff for two spots in the playoff final, the four teams from ACFF side playoff for one spot. The two VFV winners and the ACFF winner are joined by the 13th placed team from the

in the playoff final, with the winner of those four taking the final promotion spot (in case the team from the Belgian National Division 1 wins, this team remains at that level and no extra team from the Belgian Second Amateur Division is promoted besides the three league winners). Regarding relegation, on ACFF side the bottom three teams are relegated to the

, while on VFV side only the bottom two teams from each league are relegated. Additionally, based on the language group of the directly relegating teams from the

each season, it is possible that there will be up to three extra relegations on each side. On ACFF side this just means that any additional required relegations will happen from bottom upwards, starting with the 13th finisher, then 12th finisher and so on. On VFV side, a relegation playoff is organised each season between the two teams finishing 14th, with the losing team first in line to drop in case needed, followed by the winner. If an additional relegation would be necessary, the 13th placed teams would need to playoff as well.

Past winners

Footnotes

References

{{UEFA fourth leagues Sports leagues established in 2016 2016 establishments in Belgium Fourth level football leagues in Europe 4