FC Brussels calls it a day

Brussels football club RWDM Brussels has gone into voluntary liquidation as a result of intractable financial problems, chair Johan Vermeersch announced. “It’s all over,” he said.

The club, known simply as FC Brussels, was based in the Molenbeek commune's Edmond Machtens Stadium (pictured) and played four seasons in the first class before being relegated in 2008, when the problems began to get worse.

Last April, the club failed to obtain a licence for the second division and was forced to drop to the third. Authorities brought White Star Brussels of Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe to Molenbeek and joined fans in calling for Vermeersch to step down.

RWDM is a non-profit organisation. The members of the board of management have resigned, leaving Vermeersch to apply for a liquidator to be appointed to settle the club’s financial affairs. “If Molenbeek decides I have to go, and there is no replacement, then the situation is very simple,” said Vermeersch. “It’s a pity the club has to be sacrificed in the process.”

The club’s players are among its main creditors, but there is little chance of them seeing any of their money back. The club’s youth players, meanwhile, need to find another space to play by mid-July. Commune authorities will try to help them, said the sports alderman.

RWDM Brussels FC was formed in 2003, when KFC Strombeek, dating back to 1932, moved to the Edmond Machtens Stadium. The name refers to Racing White Daring Molenbeek, a club formed from the fusion of two other teams in 1973. That RWDM also ended in a fall to the third division and financial problems.