By Ben McFadyean.
Each year in German football’s fourth tier, one of the five regional champions will miss out on promotion to the 3 Liga — the third tier.
In 2024, the playoff was between the Bavarian and Northern conferences. The second team of Hannover 96 advanced via a two-legged playoff at the expense of Würzburger Kickers.
In 22/23, the tie was between two former Bundesliga sides, Energie Cottbus (North-East) and SpVgg Unterhaching (Bayern), with the Southern German team going through.
Whilst the regionalization of the league means a league of derbies and local, as opposed to expensive national, travel for fans as it is in England, the playoff system, which rotates between the five divisions each season, has left at least the fans of one team, that which misses out each season, exasperated.
The system with one playoff was introduced in season 2018/19. Before that, all the champions of the divisions of the fourth tier, plus the second-placed team in the twenty-club Regionalliga Südwest, played in a playoff system to decide on the promotions.
In the current season, the champions of the Regionalliga Nordost have to play two relegation matches against the champions of the Regionalliga Nord to determine who will be promoted.
TSV Havelse and 3-time East German champions and 1987 UEFA Cup Winners Cup finalists 1. FC Lok Leipzig both lead in their respective divisions by 10 points. Still, only one will be rewarded with promotion to a league packed with former Bundesliga sides, including former champions 1860 Munich, Rot-Weiss Essen, and Dynamo Dresden.
A further issue is income; the unified third tier, which was introduced in 2008, is the lowest professional league due to the opponents, many of which, like the above-mentioned and Arminia Bielefeld, Hansa Rostock, and Alemannia Aachen, have massive followings and that brings the income with it:
The third tier in Germany is Europe’s most followed and attracts many. England’s League 1, for all its glamour with world-famous clubs like Bolton Wanderers, Birmingham City, and Huddersfield Town, can only aspire to.
In the current season, 2.7 million spectators have gone through the turnstiles in the 3. Liga, with Dresden alone, attracting an incredible 29,000 on average per game, closely followed by newly promoted Aachen with 25,000.
Only league leaders Birmingham, with 27,000, and Bolton, with 21,000, compare well to the third tier in England, with an average of 9,000 in contrast to the 11,000 in the 3. Liga.
The German third-tier average is also considerably impacted by including four U23 sides of the Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga clubs (Stuttgart, Freiburg, Dortmund, Hannover) have much lower followings, with only BVB II attracting a regular gate of over 3,000 at the Stadion Rote Erde, the home of Die Schwarz-Gelben until 1973.
Entry to the third tier is the first opportunity to gain real media income. The €26m divided between the 18 teams of the third tier in Germany pales in comparison with the £27m (€30m) paid out to each of the third-tier clubs in England.
The wage bill is also significantly lower in the 3 Liga on average compared to England’s League 1; €96,000 per season compared to an average £360,000 (€400,000).
Multiple clubs have been promoted to the third tier for the first time in the last ten seasons, clubs like VfR Aalen, SV Elversberg, and SV Sandhausen, for whom promotion is an opportunity to break into the big time.
For some, like SV Elversberg, who leapfrogged two divisions between 2022 and 2023 from fourth to second, promotion can even be a chance at Bundesliga glory. The team from the Saarland region led the 2. The Bundesliga is currently just 3 points behind the promotion playoff spot with twelve games to go.
Representatives of the ninety teams in the five fourth-tier conferences, Nord, Nord-Ost, Bayern, West, and Südwest, are in ongoing discussions with the DFB, the German football association, to reform the promotion system to make it more equitable.
Three proposals are currently being discussed:
Reduction to four leagues with direct promotion
The current five regional leagues would be reduced to four (North, East, South, West) and increased to 20 teams per league. This division would match that which already existed in the 1990s in the third tier.
Under the newly proposed system, which gained the support of all clubs except two-time first-tier champions Viktoria Berlin at the meeting on Wednesday, the champion of each league would be promoted directly to the third division each season.
The resulting loss of 10 sides across the fourth tier will likely be hotly debated, with no club wanting to miss out.
Champions playoffs with fair financial distribution
The five regional league champions play in an ‘everyone against everyone’ playoff round. The four best-placed teams are promoted directly to the 3rd division. The income from TV marketing is distributed equally among all regional league teams participating in the playoffs.
The system is similar to that in place before 2008 but would not resolve the issue of one team missing out despite the increased media interest and resulting income.
Expansion of the 3rd division and a 4-tier regional league and the U23 teams form their separate league
This proposal envisages an increase in the 3rd division to 22 teams with four relegated teams, supplemented by four regional leagues in which every champion would be promoted.
In a system similar to that in the English pyramid, the professional development league, where U21 teams of the Premier League and Championship play in two leagues, the Premier League 2 divided into Division 1 and 2, would combine the second teams in the two divisions into a separate U23 league.
This system would make sense from the perspective of developing leading talents and removing the teams with less following. It would also make it easier to loan talent from the top clubs to third—or fourth-division clubs.
The discussions on three different approaches have been ongoing for some of the past two seasons, whilst a fourth tier of regions results in a league of local derbies which attracts higher attendances and means lower travel costs all-round, which is imperative from an environmental perspective, which is among the DFB’s main stated priorities, the reduction of the fourth tier by 10 clubs is likely to result in controversy which needs to be balanced with the current system which means one-fourth tier regional champion misses out each season.
Speaking to MDR TV Franz Gerber, president of two-time East German Champion Rot-Weiß Erfurt, believes reform is more than overdue: “The DFB always says that the greatest principle is fair play and equality. In the current system, that is not the case here.”
A majority of the member clubs must agree for an agreement to be reached; the discussions are ongoing.
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