Qualla: 2017-18 Belgian Second Amateur Division

2017-18 Belgian Second Amateur Division: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

RFC Liege was founded in 1892. The club had been Belgian champion five times - three titles in the 1890s and two more in 1952 and 1953 - was a founding-era member of the Belgian league, and was one of the oldest professional football institutions on the European continent. By the 2017-18 season, it was playing in the fourth tier. The Belgian football pyramid had been restructured the year before, and three regional Second Amateur Divisions - two Flemish, one Francophone - sat at level four, each league with sixteen teams, each league's champion automatically promoted, each league's runners-up funnelled into a tangled set of playoffs designed to produce one more promotion. For the Sang et Marine, the season was about climbing out of where they should never have been.

2017-18 Belgian Second Amateur Division: Three Leagues, One Country, One Argument

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Belgian football's amateur tiers reflect Belgian politics. Leagues A and B were licensed by the Voetbalfederatie Vlaanderen (VFV), the Dutch-speaking wing of the football association. League C was licensed by the Association des Clubs Francophones de Football (ACFF), the French-s...

2017-18 Belgian Second Amateur Division: The Licensing Problem

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Belgian amateur football has a quirk that turns playoffs into farce: clubs have to actually apply for promotion licenses, and many do not, because the financial requirements of the higher tier are punishing. In the Flemish Division A, only two of the eight eligible clubs - Mandel...

2017-18 Belgian Second Amateur Division: The Sang et Marine Come Through

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

RFC Liege beat La Louviere-Centre in the ACFF playoff round, then took down Mandel United over two legs - winning 2-0 away at the Flemish club's ground in Ingelmunster, and 1-0 at home - to reach the four-team Promotion Final. The other three places went to Sint-Eloois-Winkel, Ma...

2017-18 Belgian Second Amateur Division: Mergers, Bankruptcies, and the Bottom of the Table

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The lower tiers of Belgian football are restless places. Two new clubs were born going into the season: KFC Mandel United, the merger of Izegem and the freshly promoted Ingelmunster, and SK Pepingen-Halle, the marriage of newly promoted Pepingen and freshly relegated Halle. At th...