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 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 Division 2 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, one level below the Belgian National Division 1. It was created by t ...

. 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 as a new layer at the fifth level of the league system, at that time named ''Belgian Third Amateur Division''. From the 2020–21 season on it was renamed to Belgian Division 3, due to the negative connotation of the word amateur. The division consists of four 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) and two with teams with a license from the ''Association des Clubs Francophones de Football'' (ACFF, the French-speaking wing of the RBFA).

History

The Belgian Third Amateur Division was created in 2016 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 Second Amateur Division 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, one level below the Belgian National Division 1. It was created by ...

(reformed

Belgian Third Division The Belgian Third Division ( nl, Derde klasse, french: Division III) was the third highest level in Belgian football. It had two leagues of 18 teams each ( A and B) at the same level. This competition, originally known as the Belgian Promotion ...

), the Belgian Third Amateur Division (reformed

Belgian Fourth Division The Belgian Fourth Division was the lowest nationwide division in Belgian football. The division was split into four separate leagues, A, B, C and D. The team with the most points in the four leagues together was declared the overall winner ...

) and the newly created Belgian First Amateur Division. 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 National Division 1, Belgian Division 2, and Belgian Division 3 respectively.

Competition format

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

. The teams finishing in second place in each Flemish-speaking league and the three period winners (the season is divided into three periods) of these leagues will playoff for two extra promotion spots. No extra promotion places are available for the French-speaking leagues as there is only one French-speaking league at the Belgian Division 2, compared to two Flemish-speaking ones. Regarding relegation, the bottom three teams from each league are relegated to the Belgian Provincial leagues, but the number of teams to be relegated can increase depending on the number of teams being relegated directly from the Belgian Second Amateur Division.

Past winners

References

{{UEFA fifth level leagues Sports leagues established in 2016 2016 establishments in Belgium Fifth level football leagues in Europe 5