LETTER FROM BENELUX
Belgium has been in first place since 2018 in the world ranking established by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), ahead of Brazil and France. Nice performance, upset by the shameful spectacle that its national competition has just offered.
In Bruges, on December 19, Vincent Kompany, Anderlecht’s coach, and his assistants were, for 90 minutes, the target of racist abuse. And Kompany, former captain of Manchester City, where he remains revered, treated of “Black monkey”. In Antwerp, a week later, the Beerschot supporters warmed up by singing anti-Semitic chants (“Jews on gas”) and giving the Nazi salute. In Liège, at the beginning of December, Standard fans interrupted a game with smoke bombs to express their anger at the poor performance of their team and threaten the club leaders. To top it off, a gigantic scandal of fake bills, black money and match-fixing now hangs over the competition.
Dejan Veljkovic, a players’ agent, the first repentant in the kingdom’s judicial history, revealed during 27 interrogations how he allowed officials, players, coaches, referees or a former national coach to conceal a total of more than 25 million euros. A trial-river is announced and will, for sure, splash beautiful people.
In this universe that justice and the government are slow to regulate, a small glimmer, totally unforeseen, has nevertheless pointed out. A team with a meager budget of 10 million euros (the third weakest in the D1) was, at the beginning of January, well ahead of the championship. With 7 points ahead of two former cadors, FC Bruges, outgoing champion, and 11 over Sporting Anderlecht. Something to boost the morale of those who think, in Belgium and elsewhere, that football is not just regarding money, violence and racism.
The Union, a legend
This totally unexpected team, promoted from D2 last year, was saved at the last minute from a switch to D4, in 2013. And it has a very outdated name in this fractured Belgium: the Union. Union Saint-Gilloise (USG), a Brussels team whose tiny stadium is not – Belgian history – located in Saint-Gilles, but in the neighboring town of Forest, and whose training center is in Lier (Lier ), near Antwerp, in Flanders.
The Union is a legend: eleven league titles, but the last of which dates back to 1935. Sixty matches without defeat between 1933 and 1935 and a story illustrated by an immensely famous play: Bossemans and Coppenolle. The story of a colorful quarrel between two “brusseleirs”, one a supporter of yellow and blue – the colors of the USG – and the other of Daring, the great rival of the 1930s.
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