I was in Brussels visiting the European Parliament. In a very French way, the clocks of Belgium chimed 11 and, of course, the group I was with decided it was lunchtime. I had an Americaine frikadelle, which is a sausage possibly containing chicken, lodged in a baguette, topped with a little too many fries and a sauce whose flavour loosely corresponds to its given name. After probably doing something wrong with the identity crisis sausage, I dipped into the corner shop for a refreshing Lipton. The man was friendly, but a Lipton, he claimed, would not be enough for card payment. “Would a Bounty”, I asked, and the answer was no. Alas, I had no choice but to turn my eyes over to the journalism section. “DH Sports”, I muttered, as much a question to myself as to the man, and, before DH Sports had made its response, with a scent of cardboard mustard and a promise of Jupiler League wisdom, I was out of the shop and back on the streets of waffle town.
A few hours later, on the mini bus home, I was shattered. And the front page of DH sports was no more reassuring than the future of Europe I had been told about earlier that afternoon. I searched for stimulation in the form of Belgian sports headlines, each and every one of them daunting, and the cardboard mustard scent acted no longer as a pheromone, but as a poison. The football headlines made sense, and yet the numbers to accompany them seemed inexplicable, the tables disorientating. Separated by big, bold titles, were three divisions. As somebody who’d made an effort to understand the Scottish Split, this should’ve been easy, yet in every nook and cranny of this bemusing diagram was a question to which I had no response.
Union SG, were at the top of the CHAMPIONS PO league on a bizarrely low figure: 47 points. Liverpool, who’d just won the Premier League back home, were on 82. Either this was the most competitive league in the world, or perhaps Belgium had an absurdly lengthy winter break which I was unaware of. I’d watched a fair few war films, and Belgium was definitely cold. In the first position of the EUROPE PO, Charleroi sat in a European conference league playoff spot, yet so did Anderlecht, and they were 4th place in the CHAMPIONS PO group. Antwerp and Gent also looked to be missing out on Europe, despite both fairing better than Charleroi, occupying the final two places of the Championship group. Meanwhile, in the RELEGATION PO, who knew what the feck was going on? Barring last placed Beerschot (which is exactly what I could’ve done with), every club had more points than the apparently superior EUROPE PO group.
Crossing into France in my nauseous sports paper delirium, I made the choice that the only way to resolve matters would be, as is often the case, to write, and it was at that moment that CoupFrank’s May post was decided. Welcome on board.
In 2009, little to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s knowledge (I imagine), the first division of Belgian professional football underwent a radical change. That’s right; they introduced playoffs. After everyone’s played everyone twice, the league’s split into two. The Championship group includes the top 6 teams. Before the split, all of their points are halved. Of course, this leads to some clubs being on, as an example, thirty two and a half points. That’s why points are rounded to the nearest integer if this is the case. They’re not soft, the Belgian FA. Everyone in the championship PO plays everyone else in the Championship PO twice, before we get to see the final standings. The top three qualify for Europe, while fourth place enter a playoff for the privilege (more on that later).
Now for the second bit of split, the Europe PO. The teams who finished 7th to 14th in the regular season compete for a place in the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League, but, again, only after having their points halved and then made back into whole numbers. Naturally, you’d think that this means first place get second qualifying round Conference league football, but it’s not easy being the seventh best Belgian team. They’re put to the test one final time, against the 4th placed team in the championship PO.
By the time we get down to the third bit of split (aka 13th to 16th placed, before the split), it seems the Belgian FA’s calculator has run out, as no halving of points takes place. After every team places every other team twice, it’s only the top team who are safe. Second placed must fight a relegation playoff against the winner of the challenger league/second division playoffs (which are comfortingly normal and unconvoluted). Finally, as you’ve probably predicted, third and fourth place are relegated. Unfortunately, that was the fate for my adopted Belgian team, Kortrijk, who sit just over the Franco Belge border. If only they’d waited until next season, they’d have stayed up, with the league moving to a pretty average 18 team league from 2026/27.
Yes, that’s right. The DH sports malaise and the subsequent knowledge obtained was worth it, for one more season. I hope you all enjoyed getting split fit anyway. I certainly did. It’s just a pity it was, arguably, time not that well spent. Maybe there’s something to be learnt from this. Or perhaps, you’ll take what you can and immerse yourself in the Jupiler Pro League run in, where two points separate the top two with a couple matchdays left. I know what I’ll be doing. Anyone for a bounty?
CoupFrank 