Coucke sees new start after Vandenhaute's departure
SUNDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2025, 06:51 - emjomi
INTERVIEWS With the end of another turbulent year in sight, Marc Coucke (60) looks back on his break with Wouter Vandenhaute and the restructuring of the management at RSC Anderlecht on VTM NIEUWS. The club chairman resigned in September and sold his shares two months later, bidding a final farewell to the purple and white.
For Coucke, this departure meant peace and quiet above all else. It had been clear for some time that the relationship between the owner of Anderlecht and Vandenhaute was under strain. In the VTM NIEUWS studio, Coucke described his departure as a logical step. "It was a positive development. No one can deny that Wouter has been fully committed for years. But sometimes you have to dare to conclude—and fortunately he came to that conclusion himself—that it's not working."
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Continue reading After Vandenhaute's departure, Coucke began a thorough restructuring of the club's management. “I am satisfied with how that process went,” he says. "Against my nature, I deliberately distanced myself and remained in the background. From there, I spoke to a lot of people. That led to a new top structure, with Michael Verschueren as chairman and Kenneth Bornauw as CEO. They are now in charge of day-to-day management. And honestly, since that change, we have been achieving better results than in the previous months."
Coucke took over Anderlecht at the end of 2017, but the past few years have been anything but smooth sailing. Major investments have yielded little tangible success so far. Still, he does not regret his decision. “Absolutely not. I am involved in various businesses, and not everything pays off immediately. That's part of entrepreneurship. The unfortunate coincidence was that Anderlecht—the project with the most visibility—was also the most difficult.”
“Not everything you undertake turns to gold immediately,” Coucke concludes. “You need talent, but also luck and the right people in the right place. We hadn't found that combination yet. I am confident that we now have that mix.”
