Vitesse is going to challenge the loss of its professional license in court. This is the club’s last chance to prevent its demise. Does Vitesse have a chance in a lawsuit against the KNVB? Leading sports lawyers fear the worst for the Arnhem side.
Why is Vitesse not allowed to play professional football?
The KNVB’s appeals committee made it clear on Thursday: Vitesse has engaged in a “multi-year pattern of deception, circumvention, and undermining of the licensing system and a lack of transparency.” According to the committee, this pattern was “serious and persistent.” Therefore, Vitesse is permanently prohibited from playing professional football.
It is an exceptional punishment, says lawyer Maarten Schepel to NU.nl. In 2009, he was involved in Fortuna Sittard’s successful lawsuit against the KNVB, which saved the club’s professional license at the last minute. “Try to get rid of this.”
“I have never heard these words from the licensing committee or the appeals committee,” says lawyer Tim Wilms, a specialist in sports law who was involved in FC Twente’s survival battle in 2016. “It is rare for them to speak out so publicly. The KNVB will not do that lightly.”
Only the court can now save Vitesse from ruin. The summary proceedings are scheduled for Thursday at 1:30 PM at the Utrecht court. A court spokesperson expects the verdict before the Keuken Kampioen Divisie season starts a day later.
What will the judge look at?
According to lawyers Schepel and Wilms, the judge will not retry Vitesse’s entire case and take the KNVB’s place. “The judge only looks at whether the KNVB has reached a decision within reason and not whether he or she agrees with it,” says Wilms.
Schepel also believes that the judge will be reserved. “The judge will only overturn the KNVB’s decisions if the rules have not been properly applied or if he or she finds the decision extremely unreasonable.”
That was also the starting point when Schepel fought the end of the Fortuna Sittard football club in court sixteen years ago. At the time, Fortuna was struggling with major financial problems and had not submitted a balanced budget to the KNVB on time.
“I approached it from two sides. I tried to show that Fortuna eventually had everything in order. That encourages the judge to undermine the KNVB’s decision, otherwise you are still a rotten apple. In addition, I went looking with a magnifying glass to see if everything was played according to the rules of the game.”
Schepel cited five errors by the KNVB in the procedure against Fortuna. “If the judge finds one or two points that are serious enough to undermine the appeals committee’s ruling, that may be enough.” Fortuna won, partly because the KNVB’s appeals committee consisted of three instead of five people at the time.
Does Vitesse have everything in order?
That is the big question. A group of regional investors came up with a radical rescue plan last month. The financiers wanted to take over all Vitesse shares and said they would guarantee the deficit of 2.5 million euros in this season’s budget.
As a result, Vitesse has a balanced budget, which is an important condition for playing professional football. The investors have also pledged to hire directors who are “completely independent” and have “no financial involvement” within Vitesse.
Yet Vitesse seems to be mainly judged on the past. “You are not going to make up for that past, so that is no longer solvable,” says lawyer Schepel. “With new directors, you can say that things went terribly wrong in the past, but that you now have everything in order.”
The new financiers have already made mistakes in the eyes of the KNVB’s appeals committee. They did not provide all the required information and have not been subjected to a thorough investigation, something Vitesse had promised, the ruling states.
The key question: does Vitesse have a chance in the lawsuit?
Vitesse has been given a lot of time and space by the KNVB to make a new start. According to the experts, it does not help in the courtroom. Vitesse was made clear by the licensing committee and the KNVB’s appeals committee in the spring of 2024 that the club only had one chance left.
And so Vitesse will mainly have to draw hope from procedural errors by the KNVB, Schepel thinks. “It is difficult to say whether Vitesse can get back on its feet, but I do get the idea that they have made a very big mess of it.”
According to Schepel, the judge is not very sensitive to the emotions and sentiments of fans and those involved, which Vitesse often responds to. “The mayor of Arnhem has sent a letter to the KNVB, stating that Vitesse is extremely important to the city. That is also true. Emotions play a role, but not a big role.”
According to Wilms, Vitesse is not without a chance on Thursday. “The social interests play in Vitesse’s favor. It is a club with dozens of employees, it provides employment in the region.”
And there are, according to Wilms, extra trumps: “The Central Players Council and the Central Trainers Council have ruled positively about Vitesse. And I wonder if the club is not now being punished twice for the same facts. Vitesse has already received punishments in the past year. But I would have given Vitesse more chance with the appeals committee than in summary proceedings.”
The correspondence between the KNVB and Vitesse has never been made public. In the run-up to the lawsuit, both parties will have to show their cards. There will have to be clarity quickly: the Keuken Kampioen Divisie starts next week Friday as mentioned.