Robert van der Wallen, PSV’s chairman of the board, is a name that was rarely mentioned until last week. But due to the lightning departure of technical director John de Jong, he has been in the news all the time. Who is this man, who is accused of seizing power at PSV after De Jong’s resignation?
“Robert is a self made entrepreneur with a powerful vision. Someone who has found the way up in his own way. No supervisory director who appoints you to look after the store alone,” sports marketer Bob van Oosterhout told the NOS.
Van Oosterhout grew up in Deurne, the same village as Van der Wallen, and experienced him as a supervisor in his own company.
In recent days, Van Oosterhout also read the headlines, which mentioned the power that the chairman of the supervisory board would claim at PSV. He says it’s a lot more nuanced.
“A day after the elimination from the Champions League, he was terribly disappointed.”
“Wherever he goes, he wants to lift organizations to a higher level,” says Van Oosterhout. “He did that with us and he also wants that at PSV. I call that healthy ambitious.”
According to the sports marketer, his old fellow villager is demanding of himself and his environment. Half work is not tolerated. For him, winning is a philosophy of life.
“I had him on the phone the day after the elimination for the Champions League. He was quite through it. He was terribly disappointed. But as I know him, he is then eager to set new goals. then he won’t let anyone stop him.”
“He’s someone who still cheers in the stadium.”
Van der Wallen (55) has been around PSV from an early age. As a boy, he sits among the fanatical supporters on the L-side. Later he buys his own skybox and becomes a sponsor.
In the summer of 2016, because of his commercial knowledge, he is asked as a commissioner for the club. As a supervisor, he does not hide his red and white love. “He’s someone who just cheers in the stadium,” they say about him.
At the end of 2020, he will become chairman of the supervisory board at PSV, a role in which he says he wants to ‘monitor, motivate and inspire at an appropriate distance’.
Van der Wallen makes a career within the sport quite silently. The billionaire from Brabant amassed a fortune with savings campaigns in supermarkets and is not only a supervisory director at PSV, but also at the Jumbo-Visma skating and cycling team. In addition, he is chairman of the Muscles for Muscles Foundation on a board that includes assistant national coach Danny Blind.
“We want to create stars together in all areas.”
He almost never gives interviews. Rare is his appearance in the ‘PSV Business Podcast’ a year and a half ago. It offers an insight into his ambitions with PSV.
“Creating stars together, that’s our theme,” he says in the podcast. “We want to create stars with each other in all areas. Stars on the field. Stars on the shirt. We eventually want to get to that third star (thirty league titles).”
As a PSV commissioner, 24 times national champion, he does not want to overestimate his own role. “It is the management that ultimately leads the company. Only, we challenge them in the right way to see how we can achieve that third star.”