CEO Peter Verbeke: “Maintaining Zirkzee and his pile will be very difficult for Anderlecht” | Platform

Anderlecht had to wait until the last day of the match to be sure of the Champions League qualifiers. It is no coincidence that Joshua Zirkzee and Christian Kwame once again play an important role in the deciding match against KV Kortrijk.

In Anderlecht, they also rely on the attacking duo in the cup final and play-off matches. However, they are both mercenaries. If Anderlecht doesn’t want to end up on a construction site again in the summer, he should be able to keep at least one striker.

Peter Verbeke said in De Tribune: “Zirkezi and Kwame are doing really well and they complement each other. This is first and foremost a big thank you to our scouts, who put so much effort for these two players.”

“At the same time, they are both hired players and it will be very difficult to keep them. Our results in the coming weeks and perhaps achieving European football will be very important.”

“We haven’t given up hope yet on Zirkzee and Kwame. Their contract status is important. Kwame still has a long-term contract with Fiorentina. The Italians want to make money from Kwame.”

“For Zirkzee, there may be a bit more options because he only has a one-year contract with Bayern Munich. Then the question is: What does the player want? What does the player’s agent want? What can we offer?”

Behind the scenes, Anderlecht is already working on the future and this will be a future with tight budgets and transfer fees.

“Our scouts have been looking for a long time for affordable strikers and have drawn up lists of strikers we can hire, as we did with Zirkzee and Kwame,” said Peter Verbeke.

“We have put in place a political plan in which we impose a tight budget on ourselves. It is always possible that our scouts will find Sergio Gomez for the striker, a player between 2 to 2.5 million euros, but this is not clear.”

“We did not take European football into account in this policy plan, because we did not want to consider ourselves rich. If European football was added, there would be more budget. And then some players like Sergio Gomez or Jari Verchatterin could also be more inclined. to stay for a year.”

“I have no problem hiring players. Especially in the financial situation we’re in right now. Players like Andreas Skov Olsen, Noa Lang, Paul Onwacho or Theo Bongonda are players of seven million or more. We don’t have them.”

“Recruiting players is difficult, but our scouts managed to get the right players. Also think about Matt Miazga or Lucas Nmica last season.”

“The big problem with rented players is that you often start the season without them. For example, you only hire a striker at the end of the transfer window, because only then is it clear whether he will play for his team or not.”

“By that time the preliminaries for the Europa League or the conference could have already been over.”