The top team at FCG are having a huge difference in opinion
FC Groningen – together with SC Emmen, Cambuur and Heerenveen are the top of professional football in the north of the Netherlands. FC Groningen itself is not doing badly from a sports point of view, sitting comfortably mid-table, but problems are arising in its board of directors.
Since the departure of the well-known director Hans Nijland, a new problem has suddenly arisen: there is a dispute within the new management team, the newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden reports.
Commercial director Robbert Klaver has not been attending meetings after a difference of opinion with his fellow board members Mark-Jan Fledderus (technical director) and Wouter Gudde (general director).
Gudde has confirmed the news, but is not saying where the difference of opinion is. “We have now taken a time-out and we want clarity as quickly as possible,” he says to the Groningen broadcaster RTV Noord.
Klaver was not present last week at the farewell of Geert Kuiper, the commercial manager who had been with the club for almost 20 years. He has been the commercial director of FC Groningen for 11 years, and hoped to succeed Hans Nijland, the managing director who had left, but the club chose Gudde.
“Of course I think it’s a shame that I didn’t get it,” Klaver said in January. “I have to be so professional again to switch, but of course it’s a big disappointment for me personally.” Klaver has not commented on the latest turn of events.
Image: the FC Groningen stadium in 2018. Image via WikiMedia user Rickazio, license here.
