The Challenger Pro League (previously known as ''1B Pro League'') is the second-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 First Division A The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 team ...

. 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 Second Division. From the season 2016–17 until 2019–20, the competition was named ''Proximus League'', after the main sponsor

Proximus Proximus (stylised as pro⌘imus; formerly known as Belgacom Mobile) is the largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications companies and is a part of Proximus Group (previously Belgacom Group). It competes with Orange Belgium and Base. H ...

History

The Belgian First Division B was created in 2016 as the successor of the Belgian Second Division 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 and the number of teams at the second level of the football pyramid to 8. During Belgian Second Division era from 1973 to 2016, the second division winner and the play-off winner promote to the first division. From 2016 on, the second division winner is no longer guaranteed promotion. The league is divided in two periods of 15 games. The winners of a period compete each other in a final. If a team wins both periods, no final is played and it automatically rises to the highest level. In 2017, Lierse became champion of the league, but no promotion was allowed because they did not win a period.

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

and

SV Roeselare Koninklijke Sport Vereniging Roeselare, abbreviated to KSV Roeselare (),''V.'' in isolation: ., also known in French as KSV Roulers, was a Belgian football club from the city of Roeselare in West Flanders. Its matricule was 134. It last played ...

played the final.

Competition format

Until 2020

From its inception in 2016 until 2020, the season consisted of two separate competitions in which all 8 teams played each other twice. The winners of both competitions faced each other in a two-legged playoff with the winner crowned champions and promoted to the

. For the remaining teams, until 2019, the top three teams (excluding the promoted team), played together with the teams finishing in the positions 7 through 15 of the

in a playoff for a ticket into the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

. The remaining four teams played a

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

playoff, with the last team relegating into 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 ...

. From 2019, the top six teams all took part in the Europa League playoffs (including the promoted team), with only the bottom two teams playing the relegation playoff in which they play each other five times.

2020 to 2022

The 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons no longer involved two separate competitions, but rather one quadruple round-robin league in which all teams play each other four times. At the end of the season, the top-ranked team was crowned champions and promoted, while the second-placed team earned a two-legged promotion playoff against the 17th-place finisher from the

for a place in the top division. The team finishing in last place was relegated to 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 ...

(renamed from ''Belgian First Amateur Division'').

From 2022

From the 2022–23 season onwards, the league was expanded to 12 teams, as from this season U23-teams no longer play in separate competitions but rather join the regular competition. To accommodate this expansion, the league format was changed again. Now all teams play a regular round-robin round (22 matches), after which the league splits into two halves, with the top 6 teams battling for promotion to the Belgian First Division A which only goes to the top team at the end of the season after 32 matches, while the bottom 6 also meet each other but with the goal of avoiding finishing last as this team will be relegated. Promotion/relegation playoffs are no longer organized, only the top and the bottom team at the end of the season change leagues. Furthermore, U23 teams will be able to be relegated from or promoted into the Belgian First Division B, but cannot earn promotion to the Belgian First Division A. The league was renamed to Challenger Pro League.

Past results overview

Broadcasting

broadcast every game whilst it sponsored the league,

Telenet Telenet was an American commercial packet-switched network which went into service in 1975. It was the first FCC-licensed public data network in the United States. Various commercial and government interests paid monthly fees for dedicated lines ...

broadcast one random game every week. As of the 2020–21 season,

Eleven Sports Eleven Sports is a multinational sports and entertainment media group. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, it is owned by Andrea Radrizzani's sports and media investment platform Aser Ventures. Eleven Sports' business model initially centred a ...

acquired the broadcasting rights to all professional league games (1A, 1B and the Super Cup) in Belgium.

Footnotes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belgian First Division B Sports leagues established in 2016 2016 establishments in Belgium Second level football leagues in Europe 2 Professional sports leagues in Belgium