Scandalous season in Belgium, leaving permanent difficulty for statisticians and historians. Bribing scandal, involving largely Standard (Liege), but seemingly also Anderlecht, was discovered. Penalties were distributed, which at the end affected mostly history and Eric Gerets. The Belgian case was hardly something new or specific, but it opened new dark chapter of football corruption: championships settled late, often in courts, which decisions football federations chose to ignore and all parties involved complaining and claiming injuries for years. In the same time the Belgian scandal seems laughably innocent by today’s levels of corruption: it was typical case at the time, known for years and happening everywhere – candidate for the title decides to take a bit of advantage over tough rival, so they offer the following exchange to a lesser opponent they are going to face: the lowly team offers no resistance and the players of the leaders give their bonuses to the losers after the match. In this case Standard bribed Waterschei SV Thor (Ghenk). The main culprits, as most often happened in that days, were the coach and the captain of Standard – Raymond Goethals and Eric Gerets. Of course, it was laughable to assume they acted on their own and the brass of the club was in the dark, but that was the typical conclusion in the long gone years. Standard won the championship, but when the bribery was discovered, the title was revoked. So, this is how everything is today: Belgium had a final table with Standard on top; has no champion for 1982-83 season; Standard usually claims and counts the title in historic books. As for penalties, suspensions were distributed, but only for playing or coaching in Belgium. Goethals saw what was coming and swiftly got work in Portugal, so when penalties were issued he was not even in the country. And the same with Gerets – he already got lucrative contract with Milan. His suspension was effective only in Belgium, but Milan decided to take a moral standpoint and declared they could not be associated with corrupt players – no matter how good Gerets was, no matter how much the club needed him, no matter he was not banned anywhere else, but Belgium, Milan could not keep him. Milan jumped on the high horse and played moral indignation because they were trying to clean their name from their own bribing scandal in the late1970s, when they were not only stripped from fresh title, but expelled from first division. This, of course, was quickly pointed out, so Milan slightly amended their moralistic tone: they could not be associated with Gerets because they learned their lesson and now were making anything possible to keep absolutely clean image, cleaner than any other club, cleaner than clean. Gerets was not left without a job, though – he went to play in Holland, eventually becoming European champion with PSV Eindhoven. The nd of the story was just a historic limbo – Belgium, today, has a 1982-83 winner and final table, but no champion. Anyhow, all that was the aftermath of the season – but put a shadow over the football played.
Second Division, nothing special, naturally. Except Belgium was unusual and unique – very likely the only country in the world which had smaller second division than the top league. 16 clubs vs 18. Of these 16, one was unchallenged favourite this season:
KV Mechelen won with 46 points, leaving the next in line 8 points behind. For the moment, no news… KV Mechelen – not to be confused with the other club of the city, KRC Mechelen, which finished 5th – played for years, but without success in the top league. A small club, returning to first division. Only later, retrospectively, it was concluded that the rise of KV Mechelen, eventually soaring to European trophy, started this very year.
Only one team was directly promoted, the winner of the championship. For the second promotional spot there was a mini-tournament between the next 4 teams in the final standing. Well, not that… more likely the system used in Holland for years was in place in Belgium too: the season was fivided into quarters and the best of each quarter went to play for first division promotion. It must have been that, for otherwise there is no any meaningful explanation: no problem with K. St.-Niklase SK, 2nd in championship, KSC Hasselt, 3rd, and Beringen FC, 4th, but RC Harelbeke finished 7th. Harelbek did well in the final tournament, but was not able to make a surprise – three teams finished with 7 points and combination of goal-difference and head-to-head records was used to determine the winner. Harelbeke took 3rd place.
Beringen FC won the promotional spot with 3 wins, 1 tie, 2 losses, and 12-8 goal-difference – the only team to score over 10 goals at this stage. Beringen was no news either – like KV Mechelen, they had played in the lower half of first division many years.