Vitesse will wait anxiously for the next two days. On Thursday, the judge will again look at the Arnhem residents’ application to start a WHOA procedure, while a meeting with the licensing committee is scheduled for Friday, writes The Telegraph.
On Monday, a WHOA application from Vitesse was rejected because the proposed restructuring experts were seen as not independent enough. One of those experts was Jeroen Reiziger, who helped ADO Den Haag in the past with the WHOA procedure. The Arnhem residents are expected to appoint two new experts. The procedure, which is used by companies to restructure debts, should ensure that Vitesse can get rid of the majority of its debts. The Arnhem residents owe the largest amount to Coley Parry, who invested twelve million euros and was subsequently refused as owner by the licensing committee. If the appeal against the rejection is also rejected, this investment will change into a loan.
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A meeting is then scheduled for Friday between the club management and the licensing committee about Vitesse’s rescue plan. The WHOA procedure is an important factor in this. General manager Edwin Reijntjes is very happy that he has been invited by the licensing committee. “That is very special, because the licensing committee was not really Vitesse-minded,” he said in conversation with the newspaper. “So much has happened in the past year and a half. They are so often disappointed in what Vitesse has done, rightly or wrongly, which has created enormous distrust and enormous negativity towards Vitesse. Before we could come to the table, we first had to show our plans. I see it as a huge step that we can explain what we want and that we want Vitesse to be a decent and normal club in the Netherlands. We come there to explain our plan and talk to the licensing committee. We mainly come to say how we want to solve it.”
Vitesse still has a number of major problems, Rijntjes also sees. “A major problem is that we are dealing with a financier who has invested a lot of money in the club and has negotiated some security for it. The biggest problem is that the club’s shares are still in Russian hands. I can’t say too much about that, but we are discussing it. That is the first thing we want to do, to get the Oyf shares to the foundation. Oyf is prepared to do so. But agreements have been made by Oyf and Parry, so that we cannot simply transfer the Oyf shares to the foundation,” he concludes.
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