The 2020–21 Belgian First Division A was the 118th season of top-tier football in

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 ...

. As part of a proposal by the Jupiler Pro League's board of directors accepted by the General Assembly on 15 May 2020, the 2020–21 season would involve shortened playoffs due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. Only the top four teams would play for the title, while teams five through eight would play for the remaining ticket into Europe. The league fixtures were announced on 8 July 2020.

Team changes

Waasland-Beveren were originally relegated to the

Belgian First Division B The Challenger Pro League (previously known as ''1B Pro League'') is the second-highest division in the Belgian football league system, one level below the Belgian First Division A. It was created by the Royal Belgian Football Association in 2016 ...

, as they were the bottom-placed team when the

2019–20 Belgian First Division A The 2019–20 Belgian First Division A (officially known as Jupiler Pro League) was the 117th season of top-tier football in Belgium. On 2 April 2020, the Jupiler Pro League's board of directors agreed to propose to cancel the season early durin ...

stopped prematurely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, following legal proceedings, they remained in the top-flight, and instead, the league was expanded to 18 teams, with both

OH Leuven Oud-Heverlee Leuven (), also called OH Leuven or OHL, is a Belgian football club from the city of Leuven. It was created in 2002 from the merger of three clubs, '' F.C. Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee'', whose registration number it inherited, ''D ...

and

Beerschot Koninklijke Beerschot Voetbalclub Antwerpen, or simply Beerschot, is a Belgian professional football club located in Antwerp, that competes in the second-tier First Division B after relegating from the top tier in the 2021–22 season. In 201 ...

being promoted (normally only one of them would have gained promotion). Technically, under its current form and owners, Beerschot will make its debut in the top tier of Belgian football, although in reality two teams with the same identity have played at the top level:

Beerschot VAC Koninklijke Beerschot Voetbal en Atletiek Club, now K Beerschot VA was a Belgian football club (association football), football club from Antwerp. The club was founded in 1899 when most players of R. Antwerp F.C., Antwerp left the club. It playe ...

(81 seasons, last in 1990–91) and Beerschot AC (until its bankruptcy at the end of the 2012–13 season, and known as Germinal Beerschot from 1999 until 2011). OH Leuven returned to the top tier after an absence of four seasons, when they dropped to the last place on the ultimate matchday of the 2015–16 season.

Format change

With now 18 instead of 16 teams, the format has changed somewhat. While the season still starts with an initial round-robin phase in which all teams play each other twice, the end of season play-offs have been shortened temporarily and for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons only. The title playoffs will now only be played by the top four teams (instead of six) and the Europa play-offs will now be played by the teams finishing fifth through eight (instead of all teams finishing below 6th). As a result, for all teams finishing below 8th, the season will be over upon completion of the round-robin phase, with the team in last position being relegated. One exception is the team finishing in 17th position, as this team will play a promotion-relegation play off against the 2nd-place finisher in the 2020–21 Belgian First Division B, with the winner playing in the

2021–22 Belgian First Division A The 2021–22 Belgian First Division A (officially known as Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons) was the 119th season of top-tier football in Belgium. Team changes On the final matchday of the previous season, Royal Excel Mouscron wa ...

Teams

Stadiums and locations

Number of teams by provinces

Personnel and kits

Managerial changes

Regular season

League table

Results

Play-offs

Play-Off I

Play-Off II

The points obtained during the regular season were halved (and rounded up) before the start of the playoff. As a result, the teams started with the following points before the playoff: Oostende 27, Standard 25, Gent 25 and Mechelen 24. The points of Oostende and Gent were rounded up, therefore in case of any ties on points at the end of the playoffs, the half point will be deducted for these teams.

European competition play-offs

Originally, the fourth-placed team of the play-offs I (or third-placed team if the regular season winners finish fourth) and the first-placed team of the play-offs II would play two home-and-away matches to determine the Europa Conference League play-off winner, which would qualify for the second qualifying round of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League. However, since

Genk Genk () is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality only comprises the town of Genk itself. It is one of the most important industrial towns in Flanders, located on the Albert Canal, ...

, winners of the

2020–21 Belgian Cup The 2020–21 Belgian Cup, called the Croky Cup for sponsorship reasons, was the 66th season of Belgium's annual football cup competition. The competition began on 2 August 2020 and ended with the final on 25 April 2021. The winners of the competi ...

, finished in the regular season top four and qualified for play-offs I, this guaranteed that all four teams of play-offs I would qualify for European competitions. As a result, the play-off final was not played, and the first-placed team of the play-offs II, KAA Gent, qualified for the second qualifying round of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League.

Promotion-Relegation play-off

The team finishing in 17th place competes in a two-legged match with the runner-up of the 2020–21 Belgian First Division B, with the aggregate winner to play in the

, while the losing team will take part in the

2021–22 Belgian First Division B The 2021–22 season of the Belgian First Division B began in August 2021 and ended in April 2022, with Westerlo winning the title by a considerable margin over RWDM, the latter losing the promotion play-off and hence not promoted together with Wes ...

. On 11 April 2021, Seraing from the Belgian First Division B qualified for the promotion-relegation playoff as a loss by

Lommel Lommel () is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and a List of cities in Belgium, city in the Belgium, Belgian province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg. The Campine, Kempen city has about 34,000 inhabitants and is part of the electoral distric ...

against

Union SG Royale Union Saint-Gilloise , abbreviated to Union SG or USG, unofficially simply called Union, is a Belgian football club originally located in the municipality of Saint-Gilles, in Brussels, although since the 1920s it has been based at the Jos ...

meant Seraing could no longer be overtaken for second place. On 8 May 2021, Seraing was promoted to the

after a 6–3 aggregate win in the two-legged series and Waasland-Beveren was relegated to the

. Seraing won 6–3 on aggregate.

Season statistics

Top scorers

Top assists

Awards

Annual awards

Notes

References

External links

*
Jupiler Pro League official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belgian First Division A 2020-21

2020-21 The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. ...

2020–21 in European association football leagues 1