door georgebest » di 02 okt 2018, 00:02
Omdat het mode is dat supporters en bestuurders elkaar bestoken met blogs en open brieven, wil ik mijn steentje bijdragen.
So here goes.
Dear Mr. Thai, first of all my sincere apologies for my audacity to address to you personally.
Leuven is a city with merely a 100.000 inhabitants, and our local football team doesn’t exactly have a great history or tradition, not even up to Belgian standards. In the late forties we succeeded to promote to the first division, only to relegate the next season. Those were our five minutes of fame. In the eighties we crawled out of the swamp to play a handful of seasons in the second division. After that a downward spiral was initiated with amateurish leadership and severe money problems that finally led to a very sensible merger of three regional teams: OHL was born, the team we all nourished and cherished.
And what do you know! The brand new baby grew stronger and stronger and ten years after the conception he was ready to look everybody in the eye. And so he did. For three marvellous years our team was the junior contender at the highest national level. Every media praised us as an asset to the game of football. But this fairytale came to a grim end.
The same amateurish leadership that led to the bankrupt of the previous local teams, led in turn to money problems, unsavoury backstabbing in the boardroom, two relegations, despicable behaviour of the players, supporters losing interest and so on and so forth.
That’s where you stepped in. The two figureheads of the boardroom sang hallelujah at the top of their voice and sold your miraculous appearance as a sure ticket to the football Walhalla. But let’s take a closer look. One of the first players you brought us was a very friendly however redundant goalkeeper as a part of your Asian branding. Next accomplishment is an arrogant manager who has absolutely no clue about local football and doesn’t know how to motivate a team. Furthermore you use our team as a feeder club for Leicester City, the team where your heart and core business really lies. The cheap “transfer” of Hirst may have been a brilliant move moneywise, but OHL stands to gain peanuts.
I dare you to open up your wallet with the same generosity as in Leicester. Stop using OHL as a feeder club, but feed your money our way. No foreign owner has ever improved a Belgian club. In fact, last year a team with far greater tradition went belly up after a decade of mismanagement. I am afraid that the combination of thai ownership and a deplorable local boardroom, will lead to the inevitable implosion of our beloved team. You are now part of the problem and seem to stare into the dark when it comes to finding a creative solution.