F.C. Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee was founded in 1957, climbing out of the provincial leagues in 1996 and winning the
Belgian Fourth Division title during the 1999–2000 season. Promoted to the
Belgian Third Division they joined their Leuven neighbours
Stade Leuven, founded in 1905, which had played over 30 seasons in the Belgian Second Division and one year in the First in the
1949–50 season. , F.C. Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee was in bad financial shape, moving up and down between third and fourth division since 1991. In 2002, the city of Leuven decided that both Third division teams,
Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee and
K. Stade Leuven, would merge also with the third club from Leuven, K. Daring Club Leuven, which was at that time playing at the fifth level of the league.
Daring Club Leuven was founded in 1922, had played several seasons in the Belgian Second Division, and after being the leading club from the Leuven region between 1958 and 1964, had dropped down into the provincial leagues in 1979 and stayed there since. The new club took over the registration of Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee, and started playing in the Belgian Third Division under the name Oud-Heverlee Leuven. ImageSize = width:600 height:auto barincrement:25 PlotArea = left:10 right:20 top:10 bottom:30 AlignBars = justify Period = from:1900 till:2026 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1900 AlignBars = justify TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal Colors = id:OHL value:white id:Stade value:green id:Daring value:red id:Duivels value:black id:canvas value:gray(0.97) BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas BarData= Bar:Stade Bar:Duivels Bar:OHL Bar:HogerOp Bar:Daring Bar:Victoria PlotData= fontsize:S align:center width:18 mark:(line,black) bar:Stade color:Stade from:1903 till:2002 text:"Stade Leuven" bar:Duivels color:Duivels from:1957 till:2002 text:"Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee" textcolor:white bar:OHL mark:(line,white) color:OHL from:2002 till:end text:"OH Leuven" bar:Hogerop color:OHL from:1924 till:1949 text:"Hooger Op FC Leuven" bar:Daring color:Daring from:1922 till:2002 text:"Daring Club Leuven" bar:Victoria color:OHL from:1920 till:1945 text:"Victoria FC Louvain" LineData= at:1945 color:black frompos:30 tillpos:68 at:1949 color:black frompos:51 tillpos:90 at:2002 color:black frompos:51 tillpos:158 At the end of its first season, the club narrowly lost out on promotion, going down on penalty kicks to
Eendracht Aalst in the Third division play-off final, after finishing 2nd in the
3rd division B, 5 points behind champions
Tubize. After a 3rd place in the same division in season 2003–04, Oud-Heverlee Leuven finished 2nd once again in season 2004–05 and this time they did win the promotion play-off and entered the
second division in the 2005–06 season. After two seasons finishing 6th and 5th, OH Leuven finished 3rd in the 2007–08
Belgian Second Division season with 61 points. This allowed them to take part in the promotion playoffs where the team finished as the bottom 4th after losing all six games to
Tubize,
Antwerp, and
Lommel United. Two seasons with the team finishing 9th and 14th were followed by a second division title on Sunday 24 April 2011, when Oud-Heverlee Leuven secured the 2010–11
2nd division championship and gained promotion to the
First division for the season 2011–12, following a 2–2 draw at
Antwerp. The team rounded off the season the following Sunday with a 2–0 home win against
Lommel United, gathering a total of 73 points from 34 games and finishing 8 points ahead of 2nd placed
Lommel United. Their promotion brought
First division football to the city of
Leuven for the first time since the 1949–50 season, when
Stade Leuven had finished bottom of the league and were relegated. OH Leuven secured its top flight status following a 0–0 draw at home against
Lierse on 3 March 2012, marking the first time a team from the city of Leuven managed to remain at the highest level of Belgian football for more than a single season. In the 2013–14 season, OH Leuven was relegated after losing the
2014 promotion/relegation play-offs. Although finishing 6th, the team was promoted next year via the
2015 promotion/relegation play-offs, but it was immediately relegated again after finishing last in the
2015–16 season. In September 2016, OH Leuven were caught up in
a scandal affecting football in England. In relation to allegations made against individuals within English football, OH Leuven chairman Jimmy Houtput was alleged to have offered up the club as a "conduit" to allow third-party companies to
gain ownership of football players in England. Houtput claimed he was "merely trying to obtain the identity of the possible investor(s) and would never take part in illegal activities to circumvent the third-party ownership", but subsequently resigned as OH Leuven chairman on 30 September. Later that season, with the club struggling financially, OH Leuven was taken over by the Thai
duty-free retailer
King Power, led by chairman and CEO
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who already owned
Leicester City. In July 2018, OH Leuven reclaimed the registration number that originally belonged to
K. Stade Leuven, to "reclaim the glorious past", thus dropping registration number 6142 (originally belonging to F.C. Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee) and reverting to 18. On 27 October 2018, the club's chairman, Vichai, died in
a helicopter crash following Leicester City's home match against
West Ham United.
Evolution throughout the league ImageSize = width:650 height:50 PlotArea = left:10 right:50 bottom:20 top:10 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/2002 till:2027 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2 start:2003 Colors = id:1d value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5) id:2d value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.3) id:3d value:rgb(1,0.3,0.3) PlotData= bar:Position width:15 color:white align:center from:01/07/2002 till:30/06/2003 shift:(0,-4) text:2 from:01/07/2003 till:30/06/2004 shift:(0,-4) text:3 from:01/07/2004 till:30/06/2005 shift:(0,-4) text:2 from:01/07/2005 till:30/06/2006 shift:(0,-4) text:6 from:01/07/2006 till:30/06/2007 shift:(0,-4) text:5 from:01/07/2007 till:30/06/2008 shift:(0,-4) text:3 from:01/07/2008 till:30/06/2009 shift:(0,-4) text:12 from:01/07/2009 till:30/06/2010 shift:(0,-4) text:9 from:01/07/2010 till:30/06/2011 shift:(0,-4) text:1 from:01/07/2011 till:30/06/2012 shift:(0,-4) text:14 from:01/07/2012 till:30/06/2013 shift:(0,-4) text:10 from:01/07/2013 till:30/06/2014 shift:(0,-4) text:15 from:01/07/2014 till:30/06/2015 shift:(0,-4) text:5 from:01/07/2015 till:30/06/2016 shift:(0,-4) text:16 from:01/07/2016 till:30/06/2017 shift:(0,-4) text:6 from:01/07/2017 till:30/06/2018 shift:(0,-4) text:2 from:01/07/2018 till:30/06/2019 shift:(0,-4) text:5 from:01/07/2019 till:30/06/2020 shift:(0,-4) text:3 from:01/07/2020 till:30/06/2021 shift:(0,-4) text:11 from:01/07/2021 till:30/06/2022 shift:(0,-4) text:11 from:01/07/2022 till:30/06/2023 shift:(0,-4) text:10 from:01/07/2023 till:30/06/2024 shift:(0,-4) text:10 from:01/07/2024 till:30/06/2025 shift:(0,-4) text:12 from:01/07/2002 till:30/06/2005 color:3d shift:(0,13) from:01/07/2005 till:30/06/2011 color:2d shift:(0,13) from:01/07/2011 till:30/06/2014 color:1d shift:(0,13) from:01/07/2014 till:30/06/2015 color:2d shift:(0,13) from:01/07/2015 till:30/06/2016 color:1d shift:(0,13) from:01/07/2016 till:30/06/2020 color:2d shift:(0,13) from:01/07/2020 till:30/06/2027 color:1d shift:(0,13)
Green denotes the highest
level of football in Belgium;
yellow the second highest;
red the third highest. ==Honours==