President Wouter Vandenhaute on Anderlecht’s existential crisis: “Has it reached the lowest point? It can always go deeper “

He lost again (3-1 against Standard), fierce fans caused a riot, and coach Phyllis Matsuo was knocked out. Anderlecht is in deep crisis. Wouter chief Vandenhaute knows this too, who held a press conference on Monday after Matsuo’s resignation.

“Robin Feldman led his first training this morning. Anderlecht is in deep crisis.” “I understand the fans’ frustration. I myself have been a fan for 51 years. My heart is as frustrated as that of supporters. But I have no choice but to unconditionally condemn the behavior of a very small part of our fans. I am ashamed of it. The whole club is ashamed of it.”

Purple & White immediately obtained A fine of 50,000 euros. “We accept that,” Vandenhout says. “We are worried because we are already doing too much. Tomorrow there will be another fan. We want to stay as close as possible to our fans. But we are helpless against that. We have a big problem with Belgian football. I was a sports journalist during the Heysel drama, Michel Verschoren turns over in his grave.” Today. Unfortunately you cannot solve problems today by standing in the crowd. Clubs are now much better organized, but rioters are better organized than the police. I think we need a plan to deal with this. We cannot do this alone. We are in an arena of tension with the government. Because football was not good. It is necessary to reconsider the value of football in society positively.”

But apart from all the problems with the fans, there is also the sporting side. Purple & White is currently 12th with 16 points, far from the top four.

“It’s time to look in the mirror, for me too,” Vandenhout says. “The coach left because the results were not there. The meeting with Phyllis was friendly. He was disappointed, because we are human and we worked well together. We parted ways with mutual respect. It is not only the coach’s fault. Now we need to do an internal analysis. We did that A few weeks or even months ago, as they say in English: Never miss a good crunch. “

For now, it’s up to Feldman, who is making the switch of promises, with Frank Box as the tactical right hand. “Robben will take over in the coming weeks, and in between we will be looking for a new coach. We must now do the work that needs to be done. We are also working on strengthening sports management.”

“Robben came from Ajax a year and a half ago and is one of the pillars in rebuilding the club. We don’t want to burn him down. We need it in the long term. Robben is a good solution in the short term, but there is no shortage of candidates to become our new coach. There is no shortage of Good candidates. But we are not going to appoint a new coach anytime soon.”

“It is the players who can help us get out of the crisis in the short term. With good results we can breathe again. But it could also be worse. Has rock bottom been reached? It can always go deeper. And the Anderlecht club president said the group of players should be Able to bring in more than they show now.” “We have played good football in recent years, but sometimes we had difficulty getting a result. We got to the first match twice, but it was also twice in time. We didn’t play well in the cup final. That’s why, after Vincent, we wanted an experienced coach, people manager, and someone who could deliver results. Unfortunately, we came to the conclusion that Phyllis was not able to add what we wanted. This is not only his fault. Certain pain points in front appeared with more force.”

“I have complete confidence in what Robben will do in the coming weeks. I’m not against the big names, but we can also appoint an unknown coach. Today it’s not about numbers, it’s about the club,” Vandenhout concluded.