Djamal Ziane has lifted the Regionalliga Northeast trophy three times in seven seasons—but each triumph feels hollow. For the Lokomotive Leipzig captain, the league title is no longer a passport to the 3. Liga; it’s a reminder of a broken system.
This summer marked the third occasion since 2020 that Lok’s championship failed to deliver promotion. While other Regional League winners ascended automatically, Leipzig was forced into a play-off against Würzburger Kickers of the Regional League Bavaria. Despite Ziane scoring, an injury-ravaged squad fell 3–1 on aggregate, leaving the 2,000 travelling fans to unfurl a banner: “Euer System ist krank” (“Your system is sick”).
“It’s the worst thing, injury aside, that you can experience as a footballer,” Ziane tells BBC Sport. “Catastrophe doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t make any sense. If they really wanted to change it, they could do tomorrow.”
The Bottleneck in Germany’s Football Pyramid
Beneath the Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga, and 3. Liga, the fourth tier comprises five Regional Leagues: North, West, Southwest, Northeast, and Bavaria. Each crowns a champion, but only four teams are relegated from the 3. Liga annually, creating a mathematical mismatch.
The current fix is widely criticised:
- West and Southwest champions gain automatic promotion.
- A third automatic spot rotates among the other three leagues in a three-year cycle.
- The fourth spot is decided via a play-off between the remaining two champions.bbc+1
The result? One league champion is always left behind, and increasingly, it’s the Regional League Northeast, covering the former East Germany (GDR). Alongside Lok’s “triple tragedy”, former GDR Oberliga giants Dynamo Berlin (2022) and Energie Cottbus (2023) also missed out. This season, only Hansa Rostock represents the east in the 3. Liga.
East–West Disparities Fuel the Crisis
The structural imbalance mirrors deeper socio-economic divides. In 2026, none of the 40 companies on Germany’s DAX index are headquartered in the former east (outside Berlin). Salaries lag, unemployment remains higher, and populations shrink as young people migrate westward.
Officials justify automatic spots for the West and Southwest by citing higher registered team numbers, driven by larger populations. But Ziane rejects this logic: “In that case, you might as well give us the automatic promotion spot because we attract bigger crowds.”
He’s right. The Regional League Northeast averaged 3,125 fans last season, roughly double the other leagues. Lok Leipzig drew 6,352 on average, with over 11,000 attending the derby against Chemie Leipzig.
“Unfortunately, you don’t get any points for tradition, crowds and history,” says Lok CEO Toni Wachsmuth, 39. “The western leagues do have better economic foundations but everyone agrees that the current system is nonsense.”
The Compass Model: A Proposed Fix
In March 2025, eastern clubs launched the “Meister müssen aufsteigen!” (“Champions must go up!”) campaign. Their flagship proposal: the Compass Model, which would reduce five leagues to four, with boundaries redrawn each season using artificial intelligence to balance travel distances and derbies.
In return, the Northeast would relinquish its historic GDR-aligned borders. “I want to get away from this east–west debate,” says Tommy Haeder, CEO of Chemnitzer FC and campaign figurehead. “We’ve had a change of generation. Many older officials have retired and been replaced by younger people who don’t have this nostalgia for the GDR.”
Haeder argues the reform would strengthen youth 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.”
The campaign has won backing from over 80 clubs, including Union Berlin, Borussia Dortmund, and former Lok coach Marco Rose, now at Bournemouth. Dortmund president Hans-Joachim Watzke stated: “Champions must go up and we think the compass model with four regional leagues is the best option.”
A Vote Descends into Farce
Momentum built toward a June ballot—but regional federations introduced last-minute changes:
- Leagues would shrink to 18 teams (not 20), excluding 10 more clubs.
- A majority would be required in each of the five regions for passage.
Though 50.9% overall supported the Compass Model (including 76.3% in the Northeast), the Southwest backed an alternative to dissolve the Northeast league, while Bavaria called for “further talks”.
“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,” said Robert Lempka, CEO of FSV Frankfurt. Bavarian FA president Christoph Kern added: “I’m not prepared to simply give up the Regional League Bavaria like that.”
Haeder called the vote “an absolute catastrophe, completely amateurish”.
Protests Erupt Across German Football
Frustration has boiled over:
- In the Northeast, players refuse to kick off for the first minute of matches.bbc+1
- Lok fans threw hundreds of plastic trophies onto the pitch, symbolising the worthlessness of back-to-back titles.
- Bayern Munich ultras staged a choreography criticising the Bavarian FA, with a banner: “You’ve taken us for fools long enough.”
- Bundesliga fans displayed coordinated banners: “Clubs and fans betrayed! Champions must go up! Compass model now!”
DFB Calls Emergency Meeting
Responding to the outcry, DFB president Bernd Neuendorf announced an extraordinary general meeting on 18 December 2026. “The compass model received the most votes and offers the best chance for a concentration of elite performance and therefore better development of talent,” he said.
Any changes would take effect in 2028–29, too late for Ziane, now 34 and in his 13th Lok season. “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,” he says.
“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.”
