FC Twente wins appeal: no relegation

FC Twente will be playing in the Eredivisie next season. The Enschede club won the appeal case against the KNVB's licensing committee and will therefore not be relegated to the Jupiler league, the Dutch football association announced on Friday, ANP reports. The KNVB wanted to relegate FC Twente as punishment for financial mismanagement in recent years. The independent Appeals Commission found the licensing committee's punishments justified in a number of aspects, but ruled in favor of the club based on the interpretation of the so-called "clean-ship statement" FC Twente made in May. In that statement the club listed everything that went wrong in the club over the past years to the licensing committee, under the assumption that the violations listed for the period between December 2015 and April 2016 would not be included in the evaluation on whether the club would keep its license. The licensing committee did so. The Appeals Commission's ruling means that FC Twente comes away with only a fine of 181 thousand euros for four serious violations of the Licensing Regulations.