German football: the leagues where champions aren't promoted

Djamal Ziane is a three-time league champion - but he does not always feel like it. This summer, for the second year in a row and for the third time in seven seasons, the Lokomotive Leipzig captain hoisted the trophy into the air having led his team to the title in the Regional League Northeast, the fourth tier of German football.

But the memory is tinged with frustration because, just as in 2025 and 2020, Lokomotive's league title did not lead to promotion. While the other regional champions in the German fourth division were promoted to the nationwide 3.

Liga, "Lok" faced a play-off against a representative of the Regional League Bavaria, Wurzburger Kickers. Ziane scored, but an injury-ravaged Leipzig lost 3-1 on aggregate.

"Euer System ist krank," read a simple protest banner displayed by the 2,000 travelling supporters - "your system is sick". "It's the worst thing - injury aside - that you can experience as a footballer," Ziane tells BBC Sport.

If they really wanted to change it, they could do tomorrow. Germany's football pyramid has a bottleneck.

Liga, the fourth tier is split into five regional divisions (North, West, Southwest, Northeast and Bavaria), each of which produces a league champion. But with only four teams being relegated from the 3.

Liga each season, the sums don't add up. An unsatisfactory solution is currently in place: the champions in the West and Southwest go up automatically while a third automatic promotion spot is rotated among the other three leagues in a three-year cycle.

The fourth spot is allocated via a play-off between the winners of the remaining two leagues. One champion always misses out and, increasingly, it's the champion from the Regional League Northeast, covering the territory of the former eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR).

In addition to Lok Leipzig's triple tragedy, former serial GDR Oberliga winners Dynamo Berlin fell short in 2022 and Energie Cottbus drew the short straw in 2023. This season, there is only one eastern German club in the 3.