Cercle chairman after judgment: “Not a good thing for football in Bruges” | Jupiler Pro League

“This is an unexpected decision by the Council of State”, Vincent Goemaere told Sporza. “The mayor called me himself with the news. At first I thought he said it to be a laugh. But apparently it was serious.”

“I’ve always heard that there was 99% certainty that it would go ahead. Apparently we are in that one percent. We now have to see what the next steps are, but this is not a good thing for football in Bruges.”

Because no appeal is possible, we are now in a stalemate. “For us there are 2 more locations possible: the Channel Island option and the current location.”

“We have always said: as long as there is no final solution, we will stay where we are. I think this is very unfortunate for the neighbors’ plans, but we must be treated equally and will defend those rights.”

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Vincent Goemaere excludes other options than the Channel Island or a longer stay in Jan Breydel. “Building two stadiums next to each other on the current location? That seems very difficult to me. It is already a problem to build that large Club stadium.”

Sharing the new stadium, as is happening now with Jan Breydel, is also not an option. “They are clearly at a different cruising speed. A stadium for 40,000 fans is way too big for us. I don’t think that would be a wise decision.”

And otherwise a stadium outside Bruges? “No, we will stay in Bruges!”, Is the chairman categorically. “Don’t forget that we were never asking to leave Jan Breydel. But we always wanted to cooperate in a solution.”

“For us this is also a drama, because we had really hoped for that stadium on the Blankenbergse Steenweg. We had a view of a small, family stadium with all facilities. This is a big disappointment.”

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