German football’s fourth-tier promotion dispute heads to December meeting

The German Football Federation has called an extraordinary meeting for 18 December on a fourth-tier promotion system in which winning a regional title does not guarantee a place in the 3. Liga. A proposed overhaul won an overall majority in a vote at the end of June, but failed to secure the backing required from every region. [1]

Germany’s fourth tier has five regional champions and four promotion places. The West and Southwest champions go up automatically. A third automatic place rotates between the North, Northeast and Bavaria; the other two champions play off for the final place. Lokomotive Leipzig won the Northeast title in 2020, 2025 and summer 2026 without gaining promotion. This year, they lost the play-off 3–1 on aggregate to Würzburger Kickers. [1]

Clubs campaigning for change have proposed replacing the five divisions with four. Under their ‘compass model’, boundaries would be redrawn each season with the help of artificial intelligence, taking account of travel distances and derbies. The plan received 50.9% of the overall vote, but the Southwest favoured a different proposal and Bavaria voted for further talks. [1]

FSV Frankfurt chief executive Robert Lempka told Hessischer Rundfunk that the model could bring greater economic risk and objected to an opaque algorithm influencing clubs’ futures, BBC Sport reported. Bavarian Football Federation president Christoph Kern told Munich’s Abendzeitung that none of the proposed models had majority support among clubs his federation had consulted. [1]