Sint Truidense Voetball Vereeniging (STVV) used to be a good old-fashioned community football club. The kind of gritty, down-to-earth club reflecting the working class values of the town it represents.
On match days Stayen, - thier small, compact stadium, with terraces close to the pitch and with an enthusiastic and vocal set of fans, always made for a confrontational atmosphere. And with a playing surface that was far from perfect, the Stayen would often prove to be a great leveler when the sophisticates of Anderlecht, Club Brugge and Standard came to town. It’s fair to say that many visiting teams would approach a game at STVV with trepidation, often referring to it as “Stayen Hell”, - a popular label that stuck.
In a town with a population of only 40,000, support for STVV has always been impressive. Most seasons an average of around 10,000 fans would attend matches, and incredibly, in October 1965 for the visit of Anderlecht, a record 22,000 squeezed into Stayen, with fans utilizing every available vantage point to get a view of the pitch. Before the match, which STVV won 2-0, there were scenes vaguely reminiscent of the first Wembley cup final, as police had to clear spectators from the pitch so the game could go ahead.
In 1957, STVV won promotion to the top division in Belgian football for the first time, and have mostly played at that level since, and in 1965 - 66 the team finished runner-up to Anderlecht, which remains their highest ever finish.
As the new millennium approached, Stayen remained a modestly old-fashioned football stadium. Much of the terracing was in poor condition and most areas of the ground required up-dating. And so finance was raised to provide a new, 5,000 seat East Stand, which opened in 2003. It was this capital investment that would cause the club significant financial difficulties. With debts totalling 700k Euros, new investors were sought, - enter local politician and electronics magnate Roland Duchâtelet.
At that time the stadium was owned by St-Truiden municipal council, but thanks to his political connections, by 2008 Duchâtelet had negotiated the purchase of the stadium and some adjacent land, at a price way below true market value. A new property company was formed, - NV Stayen, - and using the football club as a convenient vehicle, Duchâtelet invested €35m to construct new stands, a hotel, several apartment blocks, underground carpark, offices, restaurants, a banquet hall, conference facilities, fitness centre and other commercial space.
In 2011 Duchâtelet bought Standard Liege, and one of his business associates, Benoit Morenne, assumed responsibility for STVV. By this time STVV owed Duchâtelet €7m, - a debt incurred due to his own poor management decisions.
There was a story put out to the press that, on leaving, Duchâtelet had kindly written of the STVV debt, but in truth it was only deferred, - it was to be paid off by giving Duchâtelet 10% of STVV’s TV rights and rights to a number of STVV players. Sure enough some of these players were soon sold, two of them to Standard Liege, and as the owner of Standard, there was much speculation in the Belgian press that Duchâtelet had manipulated transfer fees to his personal benefit.
All commercial revenues from the newly developed stadium continued to flow to NV Stayen, and nothing to the football club, this despite the fact that Stayen had been the club’s home since 1927. With no other option, STVV had to enter into a fully commercial lease agreement with NV Stayen.
In 2015 Duchâtelet sold Standard Liege, and in March 2016 he again assumed control of STVV, taking over from Bart Lammens, a politician and CEO of the ST Truiden municipal development agency (AGOST). He appointed his common-law wife, Marieke Höfte as head of the football club, and shortly after plans for a new south stand were announced, with 1,500 seats, more offices and more commercial space.
In a recent interview Duchâtelet said that STVV should not aspire to be successful, rather Stayen should be a place for people to come to shop, to eat, drink, dance and have fun.
Why does the owner of a football club express such an unusual view? Well, perhaps by encouraging people to come and spend their money at Stayen, his property company can eventually demand higher rents from tenants.
For Duchâtelet it all makes perfect business sense.
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The mans a greedy bastard who doesn't care about the history of a club or indeed the community. One day I am certain he will get his comeuppance.
Doesn't sound great, how so STVV fans see Duchatelet ? History trasher or generous benefactor ? Maybe a bit of a divide.
So much so that Roland is thinking of moving into a secret bunker in Plumstead and getting live streams of their games beamed to it!! {..}
Lammens is a member of the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats, the same party as Guy Verhofstadt - the man who's handling the EU's negotiations with the UK re:Brexit. The line being run here is that Lammens is/was a more benign owner than Duchatelet. Who knows?
Actually: St Truidense V.V. are making a slightly better fist of it this season than last when - under O'Loughlin - they were dicing with relegation until late in the day.
Talk about the ego has landed, I can't stand him or his vision.
Strangely, Stayen has many similarities to The Valley, Ultras in their North Stand, multi level new West Stand which houses their admin and a rickety old South stand which houses the away fans- btw, when recently there v Mouscron, we were able to count the number of away fans manually and there were probably more Charlton fans in the ground !
I have grown to really like the football club and especially the people of ST - a friendlier bunch of people you could not wish to meet - an anecdote of one of our visits was when we were trying to 'infiltrate' their Ultras in the North Stand for contacts, and i got a tap on the shoulder to look around and see this massive cave man of an STVV fan looking at me.......who then proceeded to hand me a beer.
About Bart Lammens? As you say he is a member of Open VLD, the same as Duchatelet, and they are known to be very close friends. Who knows what arrangements were made for Lammens and his predecessors, Morrenne and Vandenhoven, to own the club, perhaps Duchatelet installed them and supported them financially so he could continue to pull the strings while he was at Standard?
Vandenhoven was one-time Mayor of Sint-Truiden and yet another political ally of Duchaetlet's. For Lammens being CEO of Sint-Truiden Municipal Development, there must be questions around how Duchatelet acquired the stadium and adjacent land from the Municipal Council for a song, allowing him to establish his property company NV Stayen.
Whatever his motives, with the development at Stayen, Duchatelet has transformed STVV from an honest, earthy fotball club with real soul, into a bland and benign facsimile. The perfect artificial pitch and the fans in the new stands elevated well above the pitch level, well back from the touchline, has removed any advantage they used to enjoy against technically better teams, and so far this season attendances are down by 30%.
As for the fans; I believe there are some who appreciate the new, improved stadium facilities and see Duchatelet as saviour of the club, therefore they support him. There are many who, seeing their personal football culture "trashed", have turned their backs on the club and no longer attend matches. There is also a faction who truly hate Duchatelet, but because the football club and the stadium (NV Stayen), are two separate businesses, and the football club rely on NV Stayen for a home, they cannot see a way to fight Duchatelet. As one STVV fan put it, they are like a miserable bird trapped in a beautiful golden cage.
@simonmatthews Why did you describe it as "not wholly inaccurate"? That sounds like you regard it as mainly inaccurate. Perhaps you didn't mean it so strongly?
It can be seen that RD has very similar commercial plans at Carl-Zeiss Jena. The differences there are that the stadium currently has no atmosphere, it is largely open, with a running track (as most old Commie country grounds were); and more importantly, RD doesn't have majority ownership, thanks to the 50 plus one share rule in Germany. So he cannot mess with the team they way he does at Charlton or STVV. However he can dictate to what extent revenue from the commercial side goes back to the club/team.
And that's the problem. There is nothing wrong with commercial development that is in place to provide revenue to help develop the club in its main activity - professional football. After all the original plan for the Valley in 1989 had a bowling alley. The problem is that RD does not see the football side as the key part of the business he thinks he is building, and arrogantly transposes his version of Belgian values onto other countries at the same time.
It's worth saying that Belgians like good food and drink. It's part of their culture. So when I was taken around Schlessin (Standard's stadium) by Jacques, when they were playing away, we walked up to the main hospitality area. The walls up the stairs were clad in glass cases which held champagne bottles. That set the tone for that particular zone. Yet behind the stadium I could see the hulking, silent steel mills. Liege is a working class city, and Schlessin, as we've seen on the clips, knows how to provide a hostile welcome. The point is that the hospitality area is there to make money for the club from those prepared to pay for it. But it doesn't in any way affect the atmosphere in one of Europe's most traditional club stadiums.
Sadly most clubs in Britain, and many around the world, leave themselves exposed to ar$eholes like RD when they become unable to meet their obligations.
The commercial aspect of the development might have been the only option and I suspect the club couldn't afford to do it without outside help.
To suggest that the football results don't matter is outrageous - as soon as that is the case the club might just as well close, and that applies to any and all sporting clubs. You don't have to be the best and you don't have to win but you might as well go home if you aren't going to try to be/do either.
However there is a balance to me made between what is achievable in sporting terms and financially and all the while clubs overspend to achieve in the sporting arena they are going to have to accept that, at some point, the piper needs paying.
- once after the fans broke into RD's office at Standard Liege and harangued him for his handling of the club in summer 2013, which led RD at the time to say he'd sell Standard, so Lammens immediately tried to persuade him to return to STVV,
- secondly, when people at STVV heard fresh rumours that RD was selling Standard in 2014, staff persuaded Lammens to ask RD again.
On both occasions, RD said no thanks ("never again" according to Lammens), but as we know, he changed his mind in 2016.
Source: http://sportmagazine.knack.be/sport/voetbal-nationaal/lammens-heb-duchatelet-tweemaal-gevraagd-om-terug-te-keren/article-normal-588321.html
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While STVV was clearly friendly with the RD network during those years with respect to player loans, etc, Lammens' statements suggest that it really was Lammens' baby from 2012 to 2016.
EDITED the last bit, to clarify my meaning.
As we all know football finances seem to operate in a bizarre world of their own, and most of us would love to see a return to sanity. And, by the way, that is why most Charlton fans were quite happy when Duchatelet arrived and said he wanted to run the club in a modest and sensible way.
The problem at STVV is that Duchatelet appears to have taken advantage of their situation only to enrich himself, and with no genuine consideration for the welfare of the football club. OK he has provided them with nice new stadium facilities, but at a cost.
The football club have provided him with a platform to establish a credible and profitable property company, and some might argue that, in return, it would not be unreasonable for him to subsidise the club in some way, and encourage them in their aspirations to be successful.
All friends of RD I understand
Reminded me of his first goal for us in friendly at Pompey.
Yes he does remind me now of his early season form for us.
I can assure you that's not how it used to be, before Duchatelet the bought the club. If interested, the OP on this thread, might help explain.