May 7 – Newly promoted club Union Saint-Gilloise has written an open letter to UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino asking the support of Europe’s football governing body in protest against the structural reform of Belgian domestic football from the 2016/17 season onwards.
Union Saint-Gilloise was founded in 1897 in Brussels and remains Belgium’s third most successful club with 11 domestic titles, all won in the era before World War II.
The club played in the third division this season, but gained promotion to the Proximus League, Belgium’s second division.
Union Saint-Gilloise has straightaway voiced its concern about the new format of the domestic top leagues which will be introduced in the 2016/17 season. Only 24 clubs will continue to play professional, paid football with 16 clubs in the top flight and eight clubs in the second division.
In its current format 18 clubs make up the second division, but this number will be trimmed down to just eight with the aim of more sustainability in the league. Those eight clubs will be subject to rigid financial conditions if they want to be a part of the closed circuit of Belgian professional football.
“For the two previous seasons – that we spent in the third division – there will be an average scale of 19 points,” writes Union Saint-Gilloise club director Jean-Marie Philips. “That will almost irreversibly mean our demotion to the third division. Moreover, I remember clearly that the UEFA statutes state that relegation should be calculated on the results of a club during the last season.”
Phillips believes that the KBVB will unfairly demote his club to the third division. “In addition, we remember that UEFA clearly expressed in April 2011 that it is against these kind of relegation systems. We therefore ask UEFA to confirm that it still holds this position, so that we as a club can defend our interests via legal steps.”
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