Telenet responds to the news about KV Mechelen
Tuesday, July 2, 2019 — (UPDATE 01/08/2019) Telenet has taken note of the ruling and penalties of the BAS, and the company continues to condemn any form of distortion of competition. Telenet wants to give KV Mechelen the chance to make a new start under the leadership of main shareholder Dieter Penninckx, who is working on a new and ambitious plan for the future and, without discussion, has put the house in order by banning from the club all the ex-directors who had become compromised. KV Mechelen has also signed the Telenet ethical charter. Based on these interventions, Telenet can once again support KV Mechelen's plans for the future, and will not abandon the players and the thousands of loyal fans of the club.
Telenet has learned that Olivier Somers and Stefaan Vanroy are leaving KV Mechelen and Belgian football. The club thus largely comes into the hands of Dieter Penninckx, the other principal shareholder. Penninckx was never under discussion in the ‘Propere Handen’ (‘Clean Hands’) operation. Some of his shares will be donated to the KV Mechelen supporters association.
In the context of Propere Handen ("Clean Hands"), Telenet was in the process of conducting a thorough assessment of its sponsorship contract with KV Mechelen. As a neighbor of KV Mechelen, Telenet has been a shirt sponsor for no less than 12 years. This has been a good collaboration for many years, but, following the convictions by the Higher Appeal Disputes Commission of the KBVB (the Belgian Football Association) in the ‘Propere Handen’ operation, Telenet, as a sponsor, wanted to clearly distance itself from what happened. Competition fraud is absolutely not in line with Telenet’s values, and we strongly condemn this. The intention was therefore to no longer act as a shirt sponsor, and to focus the investments entirely on the youth work of KV Mechelen.
Due to the new turn of events, and the fact that the club can make a new start under the care of Penninckx, we have revised this. We wish to give the club, the players and the supporters every chance to restart the competition in the best way once the house has been put in order. As the main sponsor, we demand, however, that comprehensive measures be taken to rule out such issues in the future, and we call for internal and external control mechanisms.
Finally, as a result of these events, we have drawn up a code of conduct that we will submit to KV Mechelen and, by extension, to all our sponsored teams and clubs, for their signature. With this, they will literally sign a commitment to act in accordance with the values that we, as sponsor, consider indispensable, and we indicate clearly that we can intervene in the sponsorship agreement at any time if these values are breached.