The umpteenth tabula rasa at Anderlecht. In the long run, no one sees the wood for the trees. Not even after a pretty successful meeting like Wednesday’s between the RSCA fans on the one hand and Jesper Fredberg and Brian Riemer on the other. “They clearly have good intentions and made a strong impression,” says Maarten Banck of Purple Heart, one of the biggest fan clubs. Banck and his members are theoretically not part of the fanboard, but he was present in the Lotto Park on Wednesday to get acquainted with the Danish connection. “The problem is that we’ve already had so many new CEOs, technical directors and trainers in front of us that you start to wonder where the credibility is.”
So there is finally a need for stability. “If someone new comes to every important position every few months, you can’t build anything,” says Banck. “That is regardless of whether they are competent people, but without stability you will never make progress.”
Banck is a relatively moderate fan, which is evident when he says “supporters should not lead the club, I think fans who want to take matters into their own hands are a bridge too far”. Unlike many colleagues, he does not see Vandenhaute’s dismissal as a miracle solution per se. “Is he the right man in the right place? No, but the question is whether we can do without him,” it sounds.
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Other attendees at Wednesday’s meeting prefer not to be named in the newspaper because they are official members of the fanboard and do not want to lose that position. “It has been agreed not to give interviews,” says one of the members. “But if the club and the chairman don’t communicate to inform the supporters, then we have to do it anyway.”
Everyone agrees that Riemer and Fredberg left a good impression. All our questions have been answered honestly. “Brian and Jesper clearly state which path they want to take and why. That is clear communication. That’s how you do it. Hopefully we will be kept informed from now on, if necessary simply with a message on the website.”
No one available
A frequently heard complaint is the lack of communication between club management and supporters. “There has always been some distance at Anderlecht, but the gap between the club and its supporters has never been as great as it is now,” it says. “No one is available and we are not being listened to. Even the SLO (Supporters Liaison Officer, Christophe Hooreman, ed.) encounters walls. He receives our questions and asks them, but gets no answer.”
© Marc Gysens
More explanation about the long-term vision would please the fans. “They now say that Van Crombrugge is too expensive, but Vertonghen earns 1.5 million euros net per year,” points out a chairman of a fan club. “They jump from one branch to another and pursue a contradictory policy, while a stable vision must be established. Kompany did convey a vision and he appeased the supporters. His resignation will always hang like a weight of Damocles over Vandenhaute’s head.”
The majority of the major supporters’ clubs still want Vandenhaute’s resignation. “That question remains,” we emphasized. “No one should think that we are appeased with one meeting. For further actions we now await the response of the club, and especially that of the chairman himself. Vandenhaute waits a long time to react and only allows the tension to increase further.”
