I love the Belgian league's simplicity.

[Woland]

Each of the 16 competitors in the Pro League plays each of its 15 opponents twice in the regular season, once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents. The regular season thus comprises 30 matchdays of 8 matches each, played between July and March. A win earns three points since the 1995-96 season and a draw earns one point (no points are awarded for a loss). Teams are ranked by total points, then by total wins and finally by goal difference, number of scored goals, number of away goals and number of away wins. If teams are still level, a test-match is played in two legs to determine the final order in the standings.​

​

A playoff phase is then played from March to May. The top 6 teams from the regular season enter the playoffs 1, with each team playing their opponents twice. The point system in the playoffs 1 is the same as during the regular season, except that each team starts with half of the points they won in the regular season. Points are rounded up to the nearest integer. At the end of the playoffs 1, the first-placed team becomes the champion of Belgium. If some teams are level in the ranking, any points added due to rounding are first withdrawn from their total points if applicable, before other criteria are taken into account. Teams ranked 7 to 14 after the regular season enter the playoffs 2, with teams ranked 7th, 9th, 12th and 14th entering the group A and teams ranked 8th, 10th, 11th and 13th entering the group B. In each group, each team plays each of its 3 opponents twice. The winner of each group plays the final game in two legs, to determine the winner of the playoffs 2. The winner of the playoffs 2 then plays a home and away game against either the fourth-placed or fifth-placed team from the playoffs 1 for the final Europa League ticket, with the opponent depending on the fact if the Belgian Cup winner ended in the top four of the playoff 1 or not.​

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Teams ranked 15th and 16th after the regular season enter the relegation playoff. It consists of 5 games between the 2 teams. The 15th-placed team starts the playoffs with 3 points whereas the 16th-placed team starts from zero. The loser of the relegation playoff is relegated to the second division. The winner of that playoff enters the Belgian Second Division Final Round with 3 teams from the second division. The winner of this Final Round plays in the First Division the season thereafter.​

 

[Sunny]

Ha. That's barking. Isn't Scotland about to embark on a similar model ?

 

[Woland]

I think they should take that and build on it.

 

[dee]

I like to think I'm quite bright but I think I lost that somewhere around the play-off for the Europa league and then lost interest cos it's Belgian but not Waffels.

 

[Sunny]

On Tuesday, it was a case of friends reunited as they tried to sell the assembled media on their convoluted plan to revive a game in very real danger of flatlining. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Stewart Regan, Neil Doncaster and David Longmuir have a cunning plan. It involves having three divisions instead of four. With five trophies instead of four. Confused? You will be.
Doncaster could at least be commended for keeping a straight face when he claimed that merging the discredited SPL brand with the SFL would be A Good Thing.
“There’s huge power in going out to sell a single league for the whole of Scottish football and I think we should never lose sight of that,” he said.
Which does rather lose sight of the fact there were no shortage of people saying exactly the same thing when the top 10 clubs in the country broke away to form the SPL in 1998, consumed by self-importance and the desire to snatch as much broadcasting and sponsorship money as possible from the lower orders.
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Their greed-is-good mantra was soon exposed, with five of their members entering administration and two being liquidated in the last decade.
Regan spoke on Tuesday of how he hoped the new pyramid system could see a club emerge from the semi-professional ranks and reach the Champions League, just as Auxerre did under Guy Roux.
There is, of course, one club which almost did that. Gretna reached the SPL and a Scottish Cup final and qualified for the Uefa Cup before crashing and burning.
It is simply impossible for a club in this country to come from outside the senior game and graduate to European football while running a sustainable business.
The changes which have been suggested are confusing and confused. The suggestion yesterday was that the club finishing top of the 12-team second tier after 22 games would win a championship trophy but could still end up missing out on promotion.
Equally, the pyramid structure raises more questions than answers. For example, if Queen’s Park were to finish bottom and face automatic relegation, where would they be relegated to?
Most Junior leagues operate on a different calendar to the senior game and would be up-and-running by the time their relegation could be confirmed.
Will the changes increase competition at the top, where Celtic, soon to be rejoined by Rangers, will hold sway at the apex of the pyramid? Will a club outwith the Old Firm become champions for the first time since Aberdeen in 1985?
As Ralph Topping, the SPL’s independent chairman and chief executive of William Hill, wouldn’t say: don’t bet on it.
Perhaps the most positive thing which can be said about the new proposals, which failed during a short-lived experiment in Austria and Switzerland, is that they can’t be any worse than the shambles and self-protectionism which preceded them.
The best aspect is, clearly, the return to a single organisation running league football, although it would be very surprising if SFL clubs allowed themselves to be led by Doncaster.
Regan may argue that this is a new dawn but that merely brings to mind the Joy Division song New Dawn Fades.
“A change of speed, a change of style, a change of scene, with no regrets,
“Directionless, so plain to see, a loaded gun won’t set you free

 

[FoxForceFive]

There's people trying to push a move for a northern European league, involving Belgium, Holland, & Scotland. Think there may have been mention of others but they're the only ones I remember.

 

[Silver Sean]

It's simple. Win every game and you are champions.

 

[Roopy]

Turkey has a play off system now too.

We have it here in Australia as well.