FC Lucerne in the clear?
The financial difficulties of FC Lucerne may soon be over. On Friday the Swiss top division football club said it was confident of meeting all its obligations within the next two weeks.
Facing a growing mountain of debt, FC Lucerne’s backers have requested that the club be put into receivership to protect them against their creditors. At a press conference on Friday, though, club officials insisted that they would still be able to produce the SFr 2 million ($1.21 million) that they need to stay in business.
The “Task Force” set up to rescue FC Lucerne has already managed to secure SFr 800,000 towards that total, with half that amount coming from lottery and state sports funds. Private donations make up the other half.
Club manager and trainer Raimondo Ponte is expected to head a consortium of backers to provide the remaining SFr 1.2 million.
Swiss investors
“The money is coming out of Swiss hands, and all the likely investors speak Swiss German,” FC Lucerne president Jules Häfliger revealed at the press conference.
If the new backers can indeed produce the necessary financial guarantees, FC Lucerne will be able to come out of administration and return to the playing field when Swiss league action resumes in February. If not though, the club will be forced to go into liquidation, with any successive Lucerne team forced to start all over again in the amateur leagues.
Back to training
With training set to begin again on Monday, Häfliger and Ponte are clearly not contemplating that scenario at the moment.
After losing the services of at least 11 players since the club’s financial difficulties emerged, the team are likely to face a struggle on the pitch as well this spring.
In sporting terms only this season’s goal, according to Ponte, is to keep the club in the top division and build a team for the future, although the manager adds that relegation would not make things especially worsen the club’s financial situation.
swissinfo with agencies
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