Vitesse Arnhem to start new season on minus 12 points, if at all

Troubled football club Vitesse Arnhem have been deducted points for the third season in succession for their ongoing failure to comply with the KNVB’s licensing terms.

Vitesse will start the new season in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie on minus 12 points after losing an appeal against the licensing committee’s decision to punish them for filing their paperwork late.

The club are also still waiting to hear if they will be able to play at all because the KNVB still has to decide whether to renew Vitesse’s professional licence following a buyout by local investors last month.

Vitesse were sanctioned for failing to submit a contract by its previous owners to buy the club from the Common Group, a consortium headed by American investor Coley Parry.

Parry had been banned from running the club by the KNVB, but refused to sell his shareholding until the €17 million he lent Vitesse had been paid off.

Vitesse’s management argued they were not direct parties to the deal and so had no control over when the documents were filed, but the football association rejected the appeal and confirmed the points deduction imposed in April.

Interim chairman Timo Braasc said the club would study the ruling while it awaited the KNVB’s decision on its licence. “This is painful news, especially for our players, staff, supporters and sponsors,” he said.

“They have remained loyal to the club in a season that has brought them little in sporting terms, but where there was something much more important to play for: the survival of Vitesse.

“We had hoped to begin the new season with a clean slate. Instead we are starting at a disadvantage again.”

Last year Vitesse were deducted a total of 39 points for breaching their licensing terms and finished bottom of the 20-club league with five points. Without the penalties they would have ended the season in 14th place.

The previous year they were relegated from the Eredivisie after having 18 points deducted for failing to deliver accurate financial results or clarify its relationship with the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

An investigation by the Guardian newspaper and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism found that Abramovich secretly pumped €100 million into the club while it was owned by his compatriots Valery Oyf and Aleksandr Chigrinsky.

The five foreign investors who bought out Parry sold the club on last month to a local consortium known as the Sterkhouders, but the KNVB still has to approve the takeover.