Vandenhaute: "Now we are a healthy club"

INTERVIEWS In an interview with MidMid podcast , Anderlecht chairman Wouter Vandenhaute talks for almost two hours about Anderlecht. Among other things, the chairman revealed that he invested 12 million Euros in the club. 
 


Vandenhaute joined the club almost two years ago as an external advisor. Since then, much has changed. "When I arrived, I found a club that was not in good health. There were serious financial problems. There was no trust at the top. Shareholders were not getting along. But above all: Anderlecht had lost the culture of winning."

Vandenhaute immediately set a clear priority: "When I arrived, I told Marc Coucke that we had to focus first on the sporting. Neerpede and the youth is nice, but first we had to make sure our first team played well and won games. I said we should appoint a sports director. Someone modern who knows how a club is run today. So Peter Verbeke became my first transfer. From there we started to build."

"Starting to build from now on"

Due to problems with the minority shareholders, it took until last week for the capital increase to be finalized and the financial disaster averted. Vandenhaute also invested himself. Twelve million, he confirms. "But making a profit is the last thing on my mind. If the shares rise, of course I will be happy. Because that means the club is achieving sporting success," Vandenhaute said. "But I assume that my money will be tied up for a long time."

"Because of the capital increase and the reshuffle, we are now a healthy club. We are not a rich club. We can't do crazy things. We still have some ballast from the past. From now on we can start building again. In the coming years we won't have to get 20 million euros from Coucke every time."