The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA; ; ; ) is the governing body of

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. It was a founding member of

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

in 1904 and

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs fo ...

in 1954 and was based in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, not far from the

King Baudouin Stadium The King Baudouin Stadium (french: Stade Roi Baudouin , nl, Koning Boudewijnstadion ) is a sports ground in north-west Brussels, Belgium. Located in the Heysel district of the City of Brussels, it was built to embellish the Heysel Plateau in ...

. Since October 2021, the headquarters of the RBFA are located in Tubize, next to its technical centre. Its chairman is Robert Huygens.

Teams and competitions

The Association organizes the Belgium men's,

women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardle ...

, youth national teams, and national eSports team for FIFA. It also runs 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 includes the following competitions: * First division A * First division B * National Division 1 * Division 2 * Division 3 * Provincial leagues *

Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, cl ...

Supercup A super cup is a competition, usually but not exclusively in association football, which often forms the 'curtain raiser' to a season, and typically involves only two teams who have qualified through success in other competitions during the pre ...

Futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players each, one of whom is ...

competitions *

Women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardle ...

competitions: **

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of w ...

** First Division **

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

** Third Division **

** From the 2012–13 through 2014–15 seasons, the federation partnered with its Dutch counterpart to operate a joint national league, the

BeNe League The BeNe League was the highest women's football league in Belgium and the Netherlands. To increase competitiveness in their national leagues, the BeNe League was a joint cooperation between the Royal Belgian Football Association and the Royal Du ...

. The two federations dissolved the joint league and reestablished their own top-level women's leagues.

Chairmen

*1895–1924: Baron Edouard de Laveleye *1924–1929: Count

Joseph d'Oultremont Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

*1929–1937:

Rodolphe William Seeldrayers Rodolphe William Seeldrayers (December 16, 1876 – October 7, 1955) was a Belgian football administrator who was the fourth President of FIFA, serving from 1954 to 1955. He was actively involved in the official associations of Belgium spo ...

*1937–1943:

Oscar van Kesbeeck Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

*1945–1951: Francis Dessain *1951–1967: Georges Hermesse *1967–1987: Louis Wouters *1987–2001: Baron

Michel D'Hooghe Michel, Baron D'Hooghe (born 8 December 1945 in Bruges) is a Belgian former member of the FIFA Council"Russian World Cup lobbyist gave painting to FIFA chief", ''Sunday Times'', 14 August 2011, page 7 and the former Chairman of the FIFA medical ...

*2001–2005: Jan Peeters *2006–2017: François De Keersmaecker *2017–2019: Gérard Linard *2019–2021:

Mehdi Bayat Mehdigholi Bayat (born 6 January 1979 in Tehran) is a French-Iranian sports administrator who serves as president of the Royal Belgian Football Association and managing director of Royal Charleroi Sporting Club. Career Born in Tehran and ra ...

*2021–present: Gilian Maertens

Association Awards

Each year, the executive committee of the Belgian FA honours deserving people with awards. These include (highest award first): * Grand Order of the Baron de Laveleye, as of 2015 only given to five people (including former chairmen) * Gold Medal, for honorary members serving 10 years * Honorary Member, to certain international referees and chairmen (typically 40 years of service) * Emeritus Member, to certain referees and chairmen (typically 30 years of service) * Association Medal of Honour, to certain referees and chairmen (typically 20 years of service) * Medal of Recognition, mostly given to national football team players with 35 caps, but also to players with 20 caps whose career stopped after injury and people who have performed an exceptional service to the RBFA.

Received awards

* In 1992, the

awarded the Belgian Football Association the

FIFA Fair Play Award The FIFA Fair Play Award is a FIFA recognition of exemplary behaviour that promotes the spirit of fair play and compassion in :association football around the world. First awarded in 1987, it has been presented to individuals (including posthu ...

Charity

In the summer of 1986, when the national men's A-selection reached the semifinals of the World Cup in Mexico, the football team started the project Casa Hogar under impulse of RBFA delegation responsible Dr.

. This is a home for street children in the industrial

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

city

Toluca Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. With a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census, Toluca is the fifth most populous city in Mexico. The city ...

, to which the football players donated part of their tournament bonuses. During 25 years, the RBFA stayed committed with this project and helped 500 children to meals and education.

Current sponsorships

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized as adidas since 1949) is a German multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufacture ...

Carrefour Carrefour () is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. The eighth-largest retailer in the world by revenue, it operates a chain of hypermarkets, groceries stores and convenience stores, whic ...

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance bar, temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pembe ...

ING Group The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale banki ...

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounti ...

* BMW *

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. ...

* ERGO * Jupiler *

RTBF The ''Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française'' (RTBF, ''Belgian Radio-television of the French Community'', branded as rtbf.be) is a public service broadcaster delivering radio and television services to the French-speaking Comm ...

* Sporza * GLS * Luminus

References

External links

*
Belgium
at FIFA site

at UEFA site {{Authority control 1895 establishments in Belgium Association Association Organisations based in Belgium with royal patronage Sports organizations established in 1895

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...