The Lives celebrates a last-minute goal in the most important match. Not a league or cup match, but the one for the survival of the club, relegated to the second division after a truly dramatic season: the entrepreneur Guus Franke has reached an agreement with the previous owner, the American Coley Parry, to acquire the Arnhem club just seconds before the deadline imposed by the Federation.
In extremis, just moments before midnight yesterday, all the required documents were submitted to the Dutch Football Association. The undertaking seemed hopeless, because in the late afternoon the parties were still far from reaching an agreement. “I was deeply disappointed that, despite the efforts of so many people, we had not yet managed to achieve this goal. It continued to haunt me and the fans were on my side. Then I decided to pick up the phone one more time and score a goal in the last second of injury time,” said Franke, who had to shoulder a debt of over 15 million.
The fans, who had gathered at the club’s training center in Papendal, suffered until the end but were finally able to celebrate. As if they had just won the Champions League, between chants and smoke bombs: Vitesse is safe, now a new era begins.
Dutch football club Vitesse was saved from bankruptcy with 25 minutes left until the deadline 🤯pic.twitter.com/TCYOnOhDUE
— RaatjeFC (@RaatjeFC) July 1, 2024