By Samindra Kunti
February 6 – Francois De Keersmacker presides over an upwardly mobile Belgian football federation with a national team that will be a Euro2016 challenger. He talked exclusively to Insideworldfootball about his home front challenges, why he backed Michael van Praag, why FIFA are not “a bunch of swindlers” but need to change, and the “stomach-churning” 2018 World up bid.
Last week the Belgian FA, the KBVB, was at the centre of a nationwide storm in Belgian football after local newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws revealed, by publishing a leaked memo, that the KBVB had suffered a €200,000 deficit in 2014. The media as well as Standard Liege president Roland Duchatelet accused the KBVB, and in particular chairman Francois De Keersmaecker and CEO Steven Martens, of mismanagement.
“I was shocked by the fact that an internal memo was published in a newspaper,” said De Keersmaecker to Insideworldfootball. “I have been reproached as chairman for considering the leak itself worse than dealing with the content of the leak. I have to say that when such matters are leaked [it means] that someone wants to destabilize internally. It’s difficult to work: on the one hand total transparency is asked from the board of directors – I totally agree that the management shouldn’t hide anything from the board of directors – but on the other hand if you know that what you present is made public, it complicates operational matters.”
Duchatelet would be at the forefront of a silent coup, together with Club Brugge, to change the dynamics in the corridors of power in Belgian football. CEO Steven Martens called the attack on the FA a ‘reckoning.’ De Keersmaecker does not per se perceive it as such, but admits there is tension.
“I have the feeling that professional football, more and more, wishes to get a grip on the operations of the FA,” said the KBVB chairman. “Why now? It partially has to do with the success of the Red Devils. Certain professional clubs consider the Belgian national team a concurrent, totally unjustifiable, but so be it. But that’s the underlying reason for the fear that sponsors might move from the clubs to the FA.”
It is a public secret that the KBVB and Anderlecht, Belgium’s most decorated club, are intertwined in the the project for the future national stadium. The construction of a new football temple is a pressing concern for the Heysel stadium is outdated and UEFA has elected Brussels as a host city for EURO2020. This prompted other leading clubs to believe that Anderlecht would benefit hugely from the new stadium.
“If Belgian football has an achilles heel, it’s the stadiums,” said the 56-year-old chairman.
“Once and for all: there is no intention for the Belgian FA to participate [financially] in the national stadium,” continued De Keersmaecker. “We simply don’t have the resources and it is also not our core business to participate.”
“We tried – and that’s not a secret – to unite the political players and to establish a consensus to build a new stadium in Brussels,” said De Keersmaecker. “A club will have to play in the stadium to make it viable. It’s a big stadium and that means there is basically only one option: Anderlecht.”
Notwithstanding the wave of criticism, De Keersmaecker continues to support his CEO unequivocally. He also rebuffed any notion of mismanagement. “There is a correct accounting document for every expense that was made and a tender was made for every invoice that has been paid and booked,” explained De Keersmaecker.
“We engaged him [Steven Martens] in 2011,” said De Keersmaecker. “He has done things that have been very positive for Belgian football ‘tout cours’, for the in-house operations, but also for the national team. For a big part, Martens and I dictated policy. Of course, I support him because what has happened and the direction we are going in is jointly [decided] by the board of directors, the executive committee and me.”
De Keersmaecker is facing turbulent times at home, but it hasn’t stopped him from positioning the Belgian FA internationally. Michel Van Praag declared on January 29 that he would stand as a candidate for the FIFA presidency. De Keersmaecker didn’t hesitate to offer his backing to his Dutch counterpart in the form of a letter of support – five are needed to be an eligible candidate in the FIFA elections.
“I know Michel Van Praag well,” said the Belgian. “Belgium and The Netherlands had various joint projects: the organisation of our [World Cup] bid and the women’s BeNe League. I have come to appreciate him. He is sound and his motives are sincere.”
“He called me at a certain moment to tell me that he was going to submit his candidacy,” said De Keersmaecker. “That was a few days before it was made public. He asked me if I would support him? I said yes straightaway.”
The Belgian FA is neither against FIFA nor Sepp Blatter, but De Keersmaecker is jumping on the bandwagon of proclaimed ‘change’ that Van Praag advocates for as the core of his campaign. The Dutchman announced he wants to modernise FIFA via a process of normalization.
“It is said FIFA are a bunch of swindlers,” said De Keersmaecker. “That is not the case. We have previously expressed this with UEFA: we are not against FIFA. They do a lot of good work. We are also not against Blatter’s person. But the reputation is bad and that change can only be done – to clean up its act – with new people. That’s also the message of Michel Van Praag.”
“It’s good FIFA use their resources,” continued De Keersmaecker. “FIFA are doing a good job operationally. You can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. I’m far from saying that FIFA are bad, not at all. At present FIFA are confronted with an image problem and more in particular by awarding the World Cup to Russia and especially Qatar. Those problems are self-inflicted. That has to change.”
FIFA’s controversial decision in 2011 to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively infuriated a number of European FA’s. De Keersmaecker did not read judge Eckert’s summary of Garcia’s report in full. Eckert concluded that Qatar and Russia did commit certain indiscretions but cleared both bidders from any substantial wrongdoing. The bid of Belgium and The Netherlands was the only clean one, according to Eckert’s findings.
“It makes my stomach churn in the sense that we believed in the bid Belgium-The Netherlands,” reacted De Keersmaecker. “Ultimately I don’t know what the incriminating evidence is. But if these World Cups have been awarded in an inappropriate manner to Qatar and Russia, then we will try to do something about it. I think we will take legal action to possibly obtain damages.”
Michel D’Hooghe is also implicated by the Garcia report and is currently being investigated by FIFA.
“You can’t put any blame on D’Hooghe,” said De Keersmaecker. “Michel D’hooghe is incorruptible. There is not a hair on my head that believes he did something wrong or something for personal enrichment. I find the way he is being attacked today strange. It’s a blow below the belt. He has always responded with the appropriate explanation when he was accused of something. But they keep persevering. There are a few persons with a different agenda at FIFA.”
D’Hooghe was one of De Keersmaecker’s predecessors. Under the former’s tenure Belgium participated in four World Cups consecutively and successfully co-hosted EURO2000 with The Netherlands. The Belgian FA is riding high again with an unprecedented Red Devils mania and Brussels as host city for EURO2020.
At the 2014 World Cup the Red Devils were labeled the dark horses. They won their three group games, then beat the USA in extra-time before succumbing to Gonzalo Higuain and Argentina in the quarter-finals.
“Ultimately Brazil was the coronation of a path that we took a couple of years ago,” said De Keersmaecker. “We hit the nadir with a 72nd spot on the FIFA ranking and now, unbelievably, we are in fourth position. We have had a wonderful World Cup. We didn’t lose a single game in the qualifiers. That was incredible. The World Cup – we won the first three games, ultimately we lost in the quarterfinals against Argentina – a game in which more was possible but you could sense that Belgium lacked a bit of experience, something the Argentinians had in abundance.”
Belgium reached the quarter-finals, their second best result in World Cup history, but criticism, aimed at coach Marc Wilmots, was rife. The Red Devils never really excelled in Brazil, despite their hugely talented and youthful squad. Did Wilmots get, and is he getting, the maximum out of his players?
“He is a great communicator,” said De Keersmaecker. “He can elevate the squad to a higher echelon. He motivates well. Wilmots went for efficiency. Wilmots’s lineups were technically and tactically good. Yes, at times the football was not sparkling, but at the level of the World Cup it’s imperative to aim for the right result.”
The coach may divide opinion, but nonetheless the expectations for EURO2016 are sky-high. “The next games [in the qualifiers] against Cyprus and Israel are very important, but no one doubts that qualification is a must, notwithstanding that we dropped points earlier [in the campaign],” said De Keersmeacker. “One expects a performance at EURO2016: the pessimists talk about the semi-finals at least and that’s realistic. The optimists talk about the final or becoming European champions. Let’s say that we must qualify for France and in the tournament we expect to progress [beyond the group stages] and at least have as good [as a performance] as at the World Cup and if possible a little better.”
This is without doubt Belgium’s golden generation. A legion of young, eye-catching Belgians are plying their trade in the Premier League: Eden Hazard, Adnan Januzai, Vincent Kompany, etc. Belgium became an expert in youth development under the guidance of Michael Sablon, but at present the country seems in danger of becoming too much of an exporter of players to the detriment of its own domestic league.
“After EURO2000 – that’s the beginning – the entire youth system was revised and Michael Sablon takes a lot of the credit,” explained De Keersmaecker. “He put a vision on paper. He also had a way of playing that was adopted by the national youth sides and it was tried to be implemented at club level as well.
“Homegrown talent has been given the chance to play at professional level. In the past this was precisely the achilles heel,” continued the KBVB chairman. “At a European and global scale, it’s always the same story: the budgets are just so different that you can hardly talk about healthy competition. We lost the position that we once had twenty or thirty years ago with Anderlecht and Standard Liege. It is difficult to catch up. Take England: the TV rights and the budgets and look at the budgets Belgian clubs have to make do with, that’s just not competitive. You can’t change that in the short term.”
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