Off-Season Belgian Football News Sunday

I am keeping up with all the team news on the Belgian Teams during the summer as a way to prepare for the 2018-2019 season already and will bring regular reports on all of it on a regular basis in these blog posts.

SUNDAY 2 JUNE 2019 NEWS UPDATE

The biggest news this weekend came from the match-fixing scandal

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KV Mechelen Relegates

So Mechelen who won the 2nd division Promotion along with the Belgian Cup this season but will be relegated back to Division 1B because of a match-fixing attempt the season before. Beerschot will be taking their place in the 1st Division and they won't be allowed to play in the Europa League which means AA Gent will take their place in that league. Mechelen is not taking the conviction and will fight it so it all is not 100% sure yet even though it looks like there will unlikely be a way out of it for them. The board also will need to pay for all the costs during the process which still has to be calculated.

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Waasland Beveren Free Of Charges

Waasland Beveren was also linked to the match-fixing but was spoken free and will be able to stay in the 1st division next season. Since they have no clarity on what was going to happen they could not start preparing for the next season. I do expect a weakened Waasland next season at least at the start and will already be looking to fade them.

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Leko To Al Ain FC

Leko who was involved somehow in the corruption scandal in Belgium chose to leave Club Brugge near the end of last season as the board waited too long to extend his contract. It was said that he wanted to put on the same financial level as Prudhomme but the board did not agree to that. Now he will go to the Arabian Emirates for the money becoming the coach of Al Ain for 2 seasons.

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Mazzu New Coach Genk

Felice Mazzu who has done excellent in Charleroi will become the new coach of Racing Genk. The biggest question will be the style of play he will bring as he is known to be a very defensive-minded coach while Genk is a team that traditionally plays forward. I guess in the Champions League matches he won't shy away from parking the bus still. Will be interesting to see how it will play out. I somewhat fear that he will maintain his defensive style breaking down opponents and winning the match with 1 goal often.

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Skulason to Oostende

There have been a lot of changes for Oostende next season. Skulason came from relegated Lokeren as a Left Back which was a priority for them after they saw Tomasevic, De Bock, Nastic leave the team. I do expect another difficult season for Oostende as they still suffer from wealthy president Coucke going to Anderlecht leaving them with a too expensive salary pressure of overrated players. They need to cut this down at that comes with a decrease in quality. Skulason is a good example of this.

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I will continue to bring these news updates on a regular basis...