The curtain has finally fallen on Deinze: second division club declared bankrupt after failed takeover

The Deinze drama is complete: after months of misery, the Football club along the Leie was declared bankrupt today. The ambitious second division club became entangled in an impossible takeover dossier this season and never got rid of its mountain of debt. Today the verdict was handed down in the Business Court of Ghent.

The takeover that was supposed to provide new hope for Deinze has become a black hole into which everything and everyone was dragged along.

When the Luxembourg-based AAD Invest Group presented itself as the saviors of Deinze in early November, the euphoria in the Dakota Arena was still great. New owner and investor Doudou Cissé promised to take on the debts of the previous owner – the Singaporeans of ACA Football Partners – and thus save Deinze from bankruptcy.

But it was anything but a honeymoon for Deinze 2.0. While everyone thought that the second division club had left again, the club’s financial situation only seemed to deteriorate further after the takeover.

Cissé continued to make promises to the club’s players and staff, but deadlines continued to be pushed back and promised payments failed to materialize. And so Deinze became a powder keg in which players went on strike and moved to other clubs, and unpaid suppliers and creditors went to court.

Deinze was soon given a transfer stop and two points deductions by the licensing committee, but it was mainly the case in the Business Court of Ghent that worried everyone in and around the club. The second division club was summoned by three parties for late payments.

Two weeks ago, Deinze was unable to demonstrate that it had the resources to pay its debts, but the club bought time by appointing provisional administrators, who were given until this week to quickly find a solution to the crisis.

It was expected that investor Doudou Cissé would part with his shares, but that did not happen. “The situation is pitch black in Deinze,” the administrators, who found no way out, testified again yesterday in the Enterprise Court during the final action.

Today the court in Ghent handed down the verdict: the club is definitively declared bankrupt.

“The information provided and documents submitted by the plaintiff shows that Deinze has permanently ceased to pay and that her credit has been shaken,” according to the press release from the commercial court.