Left - Mannheim's Carl-Benz Stadium, home of Waldorf Mannheim and temporarily 1899 Hoffenheim.

After the formation of the national Division 3 in 2008/09 comes the new 4th tier of football in July 2009.  The Regionalliga will be split into three regions for this final season, with the top teams breaking away to form Division 4 next season.  At the time of going to press the 3 x 18 leagues will probably be split so that the top 8 teams in each division will be invited to form the new league.  This may be reduced in the following seasons down to 20 or 18 via  reduced numbers of promoted teams.

The leagues contain a number of Bundesliga 1 (and 2) reserve teams who will not be allowed to be promoted if their main team plays in the higher division - for instance Wiesbaden  and Unterhaching currently play in Division 3.  The most famous club playing in the Regionalliga is Rot-Weiss Essen who won the national division in 1955, and Holstein Kiel who won the league in 1912.  FC Magdeburg had success within the old East German league and as well as winning the league an number of times also competed in Europe on a number of occasions.