Sporting de Charleroi is experiencing a rather…special end to the season. While tensions between management and supporters are still very present, the men’s team comes to escape to the Pro League.
Charleroi will have to rebuild and try to get back on their feet after a very complicated season. If among the men the maintenance is now acquired, the situation is even less rosy within the women’s team.
Indeed, Sporting de Charleroi announced this Tuesday that its women’s team will no longer play in the Lotto Super League, the Belgian D1 championship.
“Sporting de Charleroi regrets having to announce that its board has made the difficult decision to withdraw its women’s team entered in the Lotto Super League for next season,” explains the press release.
Charleroi withdraws from the Super League
The club explained that it was no longer in line with “the financial and structural requirements that are impossible to follow at this stage of the development of women’s football in Wallonia and the region”. “These elements combined with a lack of recurring public and commercial income, lead Sporting de Charleroi to no longer be able to assume economically and continue on this path of professionalism desired by the authorities.”
Thus, Charleroi leaves the elite of women’s football after only 4 years. A decision which does not delight the Storm Ultras, the hard core of Sporting. The collective criticizes management for the justifications put forward.
The Storm Ultras charge the leadership again
“We would still have hoped for another outcome for a version of football which certainly does not generate enough commercial income and involves a certain investment… but whose final objective should not aim for these expectations (….)” , wrote the Storm Ultras on their Facebook page.
“Women’s football is an investment, not for lost funds, but a footballing paradigm that inevitably needs to be pushed and developed. It is not enough to fulfill the minimum conditions to obtain financial aid. We must believe in it and professionalize the sector (. ..)”
“We encourage the board to review its judgment and invest in this category with objectives other than simply financial or commercial.”
