Union Berlin in favor of promotion reform in regional league

As the first Bundesliga club, 1. FC Union Berlin has joined the "Promotion Reform 2025" initiative, thereby supporting the interests of many East German regional leagues. "Anyone who becomes champion has achieved something extraordinary - that must be rewarded accordingly. It's about recognizing sporting success and planning security for the clubs," said Union president Dirk Zingler.

Since March, the initiative founded by several fourth-division clubs from the north-east division has been seeking a change to the promotion regulations for the 3rd division. However, it was recently considered questionable whether a consensus proposal could be drawn up for the DFB Bundesestag in November, mainly due to time constraints. In terms of content, the initiative has recently received a lot of support, including from clubs in the Regionalliga West and third division clubs such as Energie Cottbus.

At present, only the champions of the Regionalliga West and Südwest are promoted directly. The first-placed teams in the North, Bavaria and North-East leagues are promoted directly in a rotation system, while the champions of the other two leagues determine the fourth promoted team in play-offs. This season, TSV Havelse from the north beat Lok Leipzig from the northeast.

DFB acts as mediator

The DFB recently offered to act as a mediator in the discussions. However, an increase to five promoted teams was rejected. It is likely to result in a new regional structure and a reduction to four regional leagues.

"The current structure disadvantages champions whose sporting performance is not automatically rewarded with promotion. This contradicts our understanding of sporting competition. That's why we support the aims of the reform and are reaffirming the demands we made back in 2018 for a promotion system based on performance," said Zingler. Union's support is primarily of symbolic importance for the initiative, as it demonstrates solidarity across league boundaries.