Tielemans (right) departed from Anderlecht but Denoncker (left) stayed on.
Early this morning, Het Nieuwsblad revealed that Anderlecht had a loss of 42 million euros in the last financial year. The reasons given are that players’ salaries have risen too high and fees to agents have gone through the roof.
It is also stated that Anderlecht have not made a profit since 2006-07. These are remarkable revelations given that Anderlecht have frequently qualified for the Champions League and players such as Romelu Lukaku, Youri Tielemans, Aleksander Mitrovic, Dieumerci Mbokani and Dennis Praet have all left the club for fees of over 10 million euros. One wonders if Marc Coucke checked the accounts before buying the club.
Unrelated to these figures is an interview with Kevin Bruyne’s agent Patrick De Koster. Apart from revealing that De Bruyne is one of the highest earners, in the top ten, in world football, De Koster also claimed that De Bruyne could have joined Anderlecht for 3 million euros in 2012 but the Brussels club did not want to pay the fee.
Given these revelations, when Marc Coucke’s old club Oostende meet Anderlecht tonight on the Belgian coast, it might be wise to place a few euros on Oostende with Fernando Canesin, ex Anderlecht, finding the net.