In the Conference League, Club Brugge will be visited by FC Lugano on Thursday. That match will be played in the deteriorating Jan Breydel stadium. After all, the construction of a new football temple continues to be delayed and that causes irritation among the club management.
It is no secret that the multiple national champion wants to build a new football temple as quickly as possible. Concrete plans have been made about this since 2006. But due to all kinds of protests or the lack of permits, these plans never get off the ground.
The current plan for the construction of a new stadium on the current Jan Breydel site also continues to encounter opposition. A number of local residents and other stakeholders have major questions about the mobility plan and the expected parking nuisance. And so the laying of the first stone continues to be postponed.
Verhaeghe delivers sneers
This is of course an unpleasant situation for chairman Bart Verhaeghe, the driving force behind this dossier. The businessman recently expressed his frustration again in conversation with the newspaper ‘Het Nieuwsblad’. In that conversation he referred to Crossing Schaarbeek in response to the complaining local residents.
For example, Verhaeghe made it clear that the stadium of the club from the third amateur is also completely outdated. “Would they prefer to let the stadium deteriorate like that of Crossing Schaarbeek in Brussels? That was once a pleasant, working-class place, but you now walk around there with a feeling of insecurity. It will lead to a depreciation of the entire neighborhood,” he said.
Better youth than hooligans
However, that statement went wrong with the Brussels club. Bee Bruzz gave youth chairman Thierry Forton a counter-shot. “We don’t understand where this comes from,” he said. “Encountering young people in our neighborhood or bumping into hooligans from Club Brugge: I know what I would choose. I can guarantee you: if something unsafe were to happen near our stadium, it will have nothing to do with our supporters to have.”
However, Forton does not want to enter into a verbal battle with Verhaeghe and even extended an invitation to the Club president. “It’s a bit ironic, but next weekend we are organizing a mussel soup here and Verhaeghe is more than welcome, also to follow a match afterwards. Then we can even show him around the neighborhood.”
