What is the most confusing football league in the world? Well I might have the answer for you all, the Belgium pro league is a 16 team professional football league with a lot of history. The league was started in 1895 by a joining of seven clubs who built the league as a round robin tournament by then Antwerp FC which has since then changed their name to Royal Antwerp, FC Brugeois which has also now changed their name to Club Brugge, FC liegeois, and many more. Some of these clubs no longer exist and a few have changed their name those that have a Royal title can be claimed after a club is around for more than 50 years.
The league once the season has finished gets split into 3 group stage like leagues and points get split in half to make the end of season more exiting, if a teams point tally is odd the points will be rounded up the 3 leagues with the top 6 teams entering a championship group which the 6 teams play a set of home and away games. This is the same as the conference group where the teams will be fighting for a spot in the conference league, however this point halving does not happen in the relegation group, this means some of the teams in the relegation group will look like they should be in the championship playoff.
This means a team like club Brugge might be top by 3 points and have goal difference go their way but may not win the league because they had their points tally rounded up when it was halved whereas a glub like Andelect didn’t and would’ve won the league because of that aspect. The point of the conference group is so that the teams that normally don’t get into Europe have the chance to via a play off vs the conference league spot in the championship group.
In the relegation group two of the four teams go down immediately whereas the 3rd lowest of the four teams play a play off vs the 3rd team of the second division to work out if they stay in the league or go down.