Sporting Hasselt

Promotion arrived in 2025/26, and it arrived as a first: Sporting Hasselt topped Eerste Nationale and stepped into the Challenger Pro League for the first time in the club's history. Before that, the honours board had nothing higher than the fourth tier.

The current club dates to 2001, when KSC Hasselt and KSK Kermt merged into Koninklijke Sporting Kermt-Hasselt. That was already a second act: KSC Hasselt itself had been formed in 1964, when Royal Excelsior FC Hasselt and Hasseltse VV joined forces. The 2001 merger club renamed itself KSK Hasselt in 2003 and moved back into the city, became Koninklijke SK Hasselt in 2006, and settled on Koninklijke Sporting Hasselt in 2012. In 2022, the club reclaimed the old federation number 37, the one Excelsior Hasselt had carried since 1906, tying the modern side back to its pre-merger roots.

Owners Sam Kerkhof and Rik Verheye have been the figures most associated with the club's recent rise, overseeing the run to the title. Home games are played at the Stedelijk Sportstadion, which holds 8,800.

Known to supporters as De Spor, in blue, white and green, the club now has to find out whether it belongs at Challenger Pro League level, a question no Sporting Hasselt side has faced before.