The new federal regulations literally state that a football club will not receive a license if “an associated legal entity has been convicted of money laundering, human trafficking or gang formation less than three calendar years before the license application”, or exactly what the suspects in the ‘Clean Hands’ case risk.
Affiliated legal entity means “any entity, which directly or indirectly holds ten percent or more of the voting rights”. This definition includes ‘Clean Hands’ suspects such as Club Brugge chairman Bart Verhaeghe and CEO Vincent Mannaert, but also Charleroi chairman Mehdi Bayat, AA Gent director Michel Louwagie and Standard chairman Bruno Venanzi. If convicted, therefore, they will have to sell shares — until they own less than ten percent — or put them in the name of family or business partners. And importantly, they should step down as chairman, director or CEO plus step down from the board for a minimum of three years.
Let’s take Bruno Venanzi as an example. Chairman and main shareholder of Standard. If he still is at the time he would be convicted, and that conviction is final, the Liège club will not receive a license. And it is therefore no longer allowed to play professional football, which would mean relegation to the first amateur. Because ‘the chairman, the directors, the general manager (or general manager), the financial director, the sporting director, the person in charge of the training center and the authorized correspondent’ are also explicitly named as an associated legal entity according to the regulations. This means that general manager Mattias Leterme (from Kortrijk), authorized correspondent Pierre-Yves Hendrickx (from Charleroi), financial director Filip Aerden and board members Herman Nijs and Herbert Houben (all RC Genk) should step aside in the event of a possible conviction to not jeopardize the license of their clubs.
Finally, not unimportant: in the file ‘Clean Hands’ no appeal procedure is possible, because François De Keersmaecker, ex-president of the Belgian Football Association and one of the suspects, is a deputy judge at the company court in Mechelen. In that case, a trial will immediately take place in the first and last instance, and any conviction will therefore be final.
