‘Several clubs’ have ‘raised the alarm’ at the KNVB about the upcoming appointment of Frank Paauw as chairman of the football association, to which there are ‘serious objections’. Since it became known about three weeks ago that the current chief of police in Amsterdam is the only candidate to succeed Just Spee in that capacity, football supporters from all over the country have spoken out against his appointment.
Paauw is not at all in good standing with the fanatical fans because he has repeatedly made negative comments about supporters from his position, which he previously held for nine years in Rotterdam. For example, banners could be seen in various stadiums and chants could be heard making it clear that the upcoming appointment of the 65-year-old Paauw will not be approved. The appointment in question should have been ratified next week, on March 28, at the extraordinary association meeting in Zeist, but this was canceled at the request of the municipality because the TV event was taking place that day. The Passion is recorded in the Utrecht village.
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That request from the mayor of Zeist comes ‘almost like a gift from heaven’ for the football association, it writes Algemeen Dagblad. Although the newspaper, through reporter Mikos Gouka, seems to assume that the appointment will continue ‘as usual’ on the new date designated by the KNVB, May 27, there are now doubts as to whether the procedure for appointing Paauw in this way putting forward was the right thing to do. “There were several clubs that insisted on a longer and more careful appointment process for a successor to Just Spee, now it appears that the supporters of many clubs have serious objections to Paauw’s appointment. The resistance from football supporters to the 65-year-old’s entry into the football world, is remarkably large, fully visible with banners and chants in almost all stadiums,” Gouka writes.
Clubs
That doubt is said to have been expressed in part by ‘various clubs’, Gouka knows. “Several clubs in Zeist also sounded the alarm. Not to explicitly indicate that Paauw’s appointment was a problem no go was, but with the express request that his possible appointment be scrutinized once again in a crystal-clear manner,” it reads. That is why the association should look ‘even more carefully’ in the near future whether the appointment of the police chief is the right one: “In Zeist They therefore have the opportunity until May 27 to create more support for Paauw’s appointment.”
Response
The leading actor himself responded in the same newspaper last week to the storm of criticism that erupted after his proposed appointment as KNVB chairman was announced. “I’m not naive, some resistance was to be expected, of course. But I did not immediately foresee the organized nature of it,” Paauw noted, among other things. Yet he wanted to make it clear that he also wants to be there for the fanatical supporters as soon as he is installed as president. “People can say a lot about me, but not that I’m not a football man.”
