The Belgian Division 1 is a semi-professional division and the third-highest division in the Belgian football

league system A league system is a hierarchy of sports league, 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 ma ...

, one level below the

Challenger Pro League The Challenger Pro League, previously known as 1B Pro League is the second-highest division in the Football in Belgium, Belgian football Belgian football league system, league system, one level below the Belgian Pro League. It was created by the ...

. 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, th ...

in 2016, coming in at the third level and pushing all divisions one level down. Initially it was known as the ''Belgian First Amateur Division'', but due to the negative connotation of the word ''amateur'' the league was renamed to Belgian National Division 1 from the 2019–20 season onwards. Then, from the 2024–25 season, a split was made into two separate divisions, with the teams holding a Flemish license and those playing with a Francophone license now playing in separate divisions within the league. The Flemish division consists of 16 teams and is referred to as the Eerste Afdeling VV, the Francophone division only contains 12 teams and is called Division 1 ACFF.

History

The Belgian First 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 The Belgian Provincial leagues are the lower leagues for Belgian football. Until 2016, these were at levels 5-8 in the Belgian football league system however as part of the reform an extra level was created causing the provincial leagues to drop ...

were reformed into three amateur levels, namely the Belgian First Amateur Division, 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 ...

and the

Belgian Third Amateur Division 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, one level below the Belgian Division 2. It was created by the Royal B ...

. As a result, the Belgian Provincial Leagues dropped to the sixth level of the league system. In 2020, the levels were renamed to Belgian National Division 1,

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 Football in Belgium, Belgian football Belgian football league system, league system, one level below ...

and

Belgian Division 3 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, one level below the Belgian Division 2. It was created by the Royal Be ...

respectively. In 2022–23, the league was temporarily expanded to 20 teams but reduced again to 18 teams from 2023–24. From the 2024–25 season, the league was expanded to 28 teams but split into two separate divisions of 16 (Flemish) and 12 (Francophone) teams.

Competition format

Originally, the season consisted of a regular round-robin tournament followed by promotion play-offs for the top four teams, with normally only one team gaining promotion to the

. Regarding relegation, the bottom three teams were automatically demoted, while the team finishing one place above required to take part in the relegation playoffs together with three teams from the Belgian Division 2, with only the playoff winner obtaining a spot in the following season's Belgian National Division 1. Following the split into two divisions from the 2024–25 season, the Flemish ''VV'' division will play a round-robin tournament of 38 matches without play-offs, while the Francophone ''ACFF'' division will play 22 round-robin matches after which the league will split into two halves, with the top six clubs battling for promotion and the bottom six clubs playing to avoid relegation.

Past results overview

Footnotes

References

{{UEFA third leagues Sports leagues established in 2016 2016 establishments in Belgium Third-level football leagues in Europe 3