Vitesse owner Valeriy Oyf, a close friend of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, wants to follow his great example from football following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the economic consequences it has for Russians in Western Europe. Oyf has stated in a statement that it is important to him that the continuity of Vitesse is guaranteed and that the club can continue to focus on its sporting ambitions.
Van de Kuit’s interest in taking over the shares of Oyf can be called salient, because in recent years the real estate entrepreneur has been constantly at loggerheads with the Vitesse club management and turned out to be a great teasing spirit for general manager Pascal van Wijk and his fellow directors.
52-year-old Van de Kuit is the owner of Nedstede, a real estate company that owns buildings and other real estate objects in Amsterdam’s PC Hooftstraat and Kalverstraat, Het Gooi, Nijmegen and Ibiza. The Vechtse Banen in Utrecht and the Oud Valkeveen amusement park in Naarden are also owned by Van de Kuit. The Gelredome has also been part of its richly filled real estate portfolio for some years now.
louse in the fur
The businessman has taken the blood under the nails from the Vitesse leadership in recent years. He has been clamoring for years against the rental contract, which stipulates that the Arnhem club must pay the generous sum of 1.8 million euros annually, with Vitesse also being fobbed off with a tip for the catering income at competitions. In 2018, this inspired Vitesse, then still under the leadership of general manager Joost de Wit, to terminate the lease of the Gelredome as of 1 October 2023. The club wanted to negotiate better rental conditions in the belief that Vitesse cannot be banned because of the perpetual playing right that has been stipulated, but Van de Kuit has not flinched to this day.
During the corona pandemic in 2020, Vitesse and Van de Kuit even faced each other in court. Because the competition had been stopped by the pandemic and Gelredome was not used, Vitesse asked for a halving of the rent. Van de Kuit reacted furiously and threatened to file for bankruptcy of the club. In the end, Van de Kuit, who has the reputation of being a tough businessman who takes legal action quickly, won in court. And Vitesse still had to meet the financial obligations plus pay a penalty interest.
Make the club healthy
Van de Kuit has indicated that he wants to investigate whether Vitesse can be made healthy. In the past, the businessman was very impressed with the management of the Arnhem club and was surprised about the business model under owner Valeriy Oyf. In recent years, a substantial amount had to be adjusted annually, because the expenditure pattern far exceeded the income. Under Oyf and his predecessors Alexander Chigirinsky and Merab Jordania, more was structurally spent than was received in order to be able to continue to play in the sub-top. It is unlikely that a new owner will want to continue in this way. To reduce those deficits, Vitesse will have to make serious cutbacks and probably have to say goodbye to its ambitions to play a significant role in the sub-top.
In twelve years, more than 150 million euros has been pumped into Vitesse from the Russian connection. It has led to huge shortages in the Performance Management Holding BV from which Oyf runs the club. This BV has negative equity of 132 million euros. That is the owner’s fault. General director Van Wijk indicated before the duel with Heracles, “that this debt will be included in the sales process”. Since no prospective buyer will be interested in taking over that debt, the only solution seems to be for the Russian to take his loss to at least get some of the money back. When the club goes under and disappears, Oyf doesn’t see any of his money back.