Dutch businessman’s takeover of Vitesse is canceled after creditor pulls the plug

Dutch football club Vitesse will not be taken over by Dutch businessman Guus Franke after all. The takeover has been canceled because the American businessman Coley Parry, the largest creditor for the club, has canceled the agreement with the intended owner Franke, about the millions of euros that he is owed. The agreement between Parry and Franke was a precondition set by the Dutch football association, the KNVB, to save the Arnhem club.

"We have spared no expense or effort to save Vitesse, met all the conditions of the KNVB, and the money for the takeover was already ready," Franke said in a statement. "But our deal to take over the millions of debt from the American creditors was a precondition of the KNVB, everyone knew that, so it can come as no surprise to anyone that I can no longer take over the club in this way."

Franke and Parry reached an agreement right before the deadline on 1 July that Franke would take over Parry’s debt from Vitesse so that the KNVB would approve Franke’s takeover. All that was left to do was wait for the formal completion of the follow-up investigation, commissioned by the licensing committee, into the origin of the money Franke wanted to invest in the first-division club.

After that, the licensing committee was expected to need an additional one to two months to give final approval for the takeover.

According to a spokesperson for Franke, Parry feels the process is taking too long, which led him to cancel the agreement in a letter.

"Given the past, I understand that the KNVB wanted to put everything and everyone under a magnifying glass three times," Franke said. "That does not alter the fact that if everyone had worked half as hard as we did, the takeover would have been a fact, and Vitesse would have been saved."

Vitesse is currently 19th in the second division of Dutch football, the Keuken Kampioen Divisie. This is a significant blow for the club’s future. The club has said that they will release a detailed statement about the news at a later stage.