Champions denied promotion: Lokomotive Leipzig and Germany's Regional League bottleneck

This summer Lokomotive Leipzig captain Djamal Ziane lifted the Regional League Northeast trophy in Germany's fourth tier but his side missed out on promotion after a play-off defeat to Wurzburger Kickers. Ziane scored, but an injury-ravaged Leipzig lost 3-1 on aggregate.

Germany's fourth tier is split into five regional divisions — North, West, Southwest, Northeast and Bavaria — yet only four teams are relegated from the nationwide 3. Liga each season, creating a promotion bottleneck. The current system gives automatic promotion to the West and Southwest champions, rotates a third automatic spot among the other three leagues over a three-year cycle, and allocates the fourth place via a play-off between the remaining two winners. As a result one regional champion misses out each year; the Regional League Northeast has been increasingly affected, with Lokomotive Leipzig denied promotion in 2025 and 2020, Dynamo Berlin falling short in 2022 and Energie Cottbus in 2023, and only Hansa Rostock representing the former East in the 3. Liga this season.

Ziane, a three-time league champion who has lifted the trophy for the third time in seven seasons, spoke of frustration after supporters displayed a banner reading "Euer System ist krank" and about 2,000 travelled to the play-off. "It's the worst thing – injury aside – that you can experience as a footballer," he told BBC Sport. "Catastrophe doesn't cut it. It doesn't make any sense. If they really wanted to change it, they could do tomorrow."

Regional disparities are cited as part of the problem: none of the 40 leading companies on Germany's DAX index are based in the former east (outside Berlin), salaries are lower, unemployment higher and populations are older and shrinking as young people move west. The argument for favouring West and Southwest champions rests on there being more registered men's teams where more people live, but Ziane rejected that rationale: "In that case, you might as well give us the automatic promotion spot because we attract bigger crowds." Average attendance in the Regional League Northeast last season was 3,125, Lokomotive Leipzig averaged 6,352 (fourth highest) and more than 11,000 attended the derby against Chemie Leipzig. Lok chief executive Toni Wachsmuth said: "Unfortunately, you don't get any points for tradition, crowds and history," and added, "The [western] leagues do have better economic foundations but everyone agrees that the current system is nonsense. Everyone needs to compromise but some officials are clearly putting their own interests and positions above the general good of German football."

Clubs from the east launched a reform campaign in March 2025 under the slogan "Meister mussen aufsteigen!" proposing a reduction from five regional leagues to four and a so-called compass model that would redraw geographical borders annually with the help of artificial intelligence, taking into account factors such as distance to away games and attractive derbies. Tommy Haeder, chief executive of Chemnitzer FC and a campaign figurehead, said: "I want to get away from this east-west debate," and argued that current arrangements harm talent development: "It's not in the interest of talent development when young footballers from Chemnitz are torn away from their homes and families at the age of 10 to join academies in Hamburg, Dortmund or Stuttgart." He added: "The compass model is a model in which every region sacrifices a little bit to solve a much bigger problem. We're organised, we have a plan, we've made suggestions. Now it's up to the federations to act."

The campaign drew broad backing from more than 80 clubs and secured endorsements from high-profile figures, including Union Berlin president Dirk Zingler: "The current set-up contradicts our understanding of sporting competition." Borussia Dortmund president Hans-Joachim Watzke said: "Champions must go up and we think the compass model with four regional leagues is the best option." Bournemouth head coach Marco Rose, reflecting on his time at Lok Leipzig, added: "I know what it's like for clubs trying to work within their means, or lack of means, at that level. Everything is on a knife edge. "You have to give the clubs and their fans the belief that their efforts and sacrifices will be rewarded with promotion."

Momentum stalled at a key vote after the regional federations announced last-minute changes that reduced the proposed new leagues from 20 to 18 teams and added a requirement for a majority in each of the five regions. The compass model still achieved an overall majority of 50.9%, with 60.9% in the West, 61.5% in the North and 76.3% in the Northeast, but the Southwest backed an alternative that would dissolve the northeastern league and reallocate its clubs while keeping the Southwest and West unchanged. Robert Lempka, chief executive of FSV Frankfurt, said: "The move from a functioning system to a complex, insecure and economically riskier model without an obvious benefit doesn't make any sense to me. I find it unsettling that an untransparent algorithm should decide a club's future." The Bavarians voted for "further talks" and BFV President Christoph Kern told Abendzeitung: "We've gathered our clubs together on several occasions and none of the suggested models have majority support. I'm not prepared to simply give up the Regional League Bavaria like that."

The German Football Federation has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting on 18 December to address the issue. "[The issue] must be resolved," President Bernd Neuendorf said, adding that "The compass model received the most votes and offers the best chance for a concentration of elite performance and therefore better development of talent." Any changes would be implemented in the 2028-29 season — too late for Ziane, now 34 and in his 13th season with Lokomotive Leipzig, who reflected: "You can never completely get over it because, at our level, the 3. Liga is probably the pinnacle. Promotion with my hometown club would have been the most wonderful thing in the world for me." "It's a shame that we have to force ourselves to remember what we've achieved. It's so hard to win this league and we did it twice in a row! You can't take that for granted."