As I said in the Patreon post yesterday morning, there was a new meeting of the board of the Pro League yesterday to assess what they’ll do going forward. A little bit of background for those uninformed: The BAS (The Belgian Arbitration Court) had voided the decision to relegate Waasland-Beveren last Wednesday despite everyone thinking that it was a lost cause due to the Competition Authority ruling that stopping the relegation of Beveren would be unjustified as it is too big of an advantage for a temporary measure until they give a final verdict. The BAS overruled the 15th of May 2020 General Assembly decision to relegate Beveren. One of the main reasons to do so was because the Pro League didn’t treat first and second division the same by letting the second division teams play their last game while the first division stopped completely.
Now there is an update by our Belgian correspondent Broken Belgian Football Supporter (you can follow him on Twitter here). The first thing to know about the vote on the 15th of May, 2020 was that it was just as scandalous as the one conducted by the SPFL. You can read about everything that happened on that day in this article here. It now seems that the Pro League is determined in ensuring that the decision from the 15th of May, 2020 stands even if it is against the order of the BAS. Yes, let that sink in!
According to Broken Belgian Football Supporter (real identity not revealed by him due to obvious reasons), “They want to keep their decision of the 15th of May (or at least I am 99% sure that’s what they want). They wanted a new general assembly this Friday, but unanimity was needed on this date to organise it.
“But accepting this wasn’t just accepting the date. The agenda for the meeting wasn’t known, they only wanted to distribute it tomorrow, the deadline to accept Friday’s date was this afternoon. But because of that late distribution and early date of the meeting, no extra points could be added to the agenda. By agreeing to the early date of the meeting, teams also had to set aside their right to sue the validity/decision of the meeting.
“Now the meeting will be held on the 31st of July, one day before the cup final, two days before the promotion final and nine days before the start of the new season.”
Now, that the Friday date was not agreed, we could very well head into a scenario where teams can add points to the schedule to be discussed in the General Assembly. And now new lawsuits can again happen since the teams didn’t agree to Friday’s meeting.
The only problem? The clock is running out against Waasland-Beveren. And it seems the Pro League doesn’t really mind. Here is a quote from Peter Croonen (the managing director of KRC Genk) the CEO of the Pro League, “We assume that the competition will start then. There is a chance that Waasland-Beveren will still go to court, but any decision would have provoked a legal dispute. That’s why we think it’s best to stick to our the 15th of May decision.”
This is now an assumption from Mr Croonen (in my opinion) that the courts don’t matter and the outcome is predetermined. According to Broken Belgian Football Supporter, the problem is that a case in front of the BAS doesn’t suspend the league, only a court case in a civil court could do that. Depending on how the meeting on the 31st of July goes, we’ll see more lawsuits.
Final words from Broken Belgian Football Supporter was straightforward indeed, “Beveren aren’t going down without a fight until the bitter end.”
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