Vitesse will start the potential new season in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie with -12 points, the KNVB (Royal Dutch Football Association) announced on Wednesday. The club has lost the appeal against the licensing committee of the football association. It is still unclear whether the Arnhem team will continue to exist.
Vitesse was deducted a total of twelve points in April because the club had not shared all information about the foreign takeover in January with the licensing committee of the KNVB. The German interim director Timo Braasch disagreed with this and filed an appeal.
That decision is now proving costly for Vitesse, because the KNVB’s appeals committee has rejected the objections. This means that the points deduction will not take effect in the past season, but possibly in the new season.
Vitesse finished last season in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, partly because the club was deducted 27 points. However, this had no sporting consequences, because relegation from the Keuken Kampioen Divisie is not possible. Vitesse could therefore have accepted the points deduction without consequences.
Now Vitesse may start the new season with a large deficit in the hunt for promotion to the Eredivisie. The new German coach Rüdiger Rehm has been given the goal of at least reaching the play-offs for promotion. For this, Vitesse must normally finish in the top eight.
Vitesse director: ‘This is a blow’
“This news hurts,” says interim director Timo Braasch, who initiated the appeal. “We had hoped to start the new season with a clean slate. Instead, we start with a new disadvantage. That is a blow for the Vitesse supporters. Especially for our supporters, they don’t deserve this at all.”
Still unclear whether Vitesse will continue to exist
The big question is whether it will all go that far, because Vitesse is in danger of disappearing. The KNVB’s licensing committee has wanted to withdraw Vitesse’s professional license for some time, because according to the committee members, the club “structurally withdraws from the licensing system”.
It is not yet clear whether and when Vitesse will definitively lose its professional license. The KNVB’s licensing committee is currently making no statements about this. The new Keuken Kampioen Divisie season starts on August 8. There must be clarity before that.
A lot has happened in Arnhem in recent weeks. Regional entrepreneurs, who are united in an investment group ‘Sterkhouders Vitesse Arnhem’, are making a final attempt to save Vitesse from collapse.
The financiers reached an agreement with the foreign owners for a takeover of all shares. They are only waiting for the green light from the KNVB. In the meantime, they are already guaranteeing a deficit of 2.5 million euros in the budget for the new season.
As a result, Vitesse was able to submit a balanced budget to the KNVB on Thursday, according to its own statement, but it still has to be approved by the licensing committee of the association. Vitesse is not waiting for that. The club started preparations for the new season a week and a half ago.