After KV Oostende, Deinze is the second second division club that has collapsed in six months. A painful story again, with foreign owners in the leading role. Sports economist Wim Lagae puts his finger on the wound.
He mainly sees the competition format as the culprit. This means that clubs absolutely do not want to be relegated and that heavy investments are being made. “Clubs get into financial problems so easily, which means their valuation is low and they become attractive prey for foreign lenders,” said Lagae in The Newspaper.
Because of the situation they end up in, foreign investors can take over the shares dirt cheaply. They can then earn back their investment very quickly. “How? By quickly generating income from transfers and transferring it to their own current account.”
“It often concerns gold seekers, wild capitalists – or in the case of Deinze, with the last acquirer, unfortunately fantasists – who are blinded by the gigantic added values that are made here on players like Thiago and De Ketelaere. Also the few limitations – with low minimum wages for non-EU players and low social security contributions – makes our country interesting for those foreign groups. A very unhealthy model.”
But how should those cowboys be kept out of Belgian football? “By not necessarily wanting to go to the first division as quickly as possible as a club. No, go for a healthy business model and pay attention to the youth. A solution could be a closed competition in which relegation is not possible and there is therefore more peace and less need for foreign input. But since that appears not to be legally feasible, we have to look elsewhere.”
Although Lagae also sees an advantage in the new Diarra ruling. “If this soon results in lower severance payments for players and therefore also in lower transfer amounts, this will of course cause problems for Belgian clubs, but it may at the same time bring out the gold diggers.”
