Ex-Molenbeek coach Thierry Berghmans: “John Textor in 2 months destroyed what we built in 8 years.”

John Textor’s tenure at Olympique Lyonnais only started recently, but it has been a bumpy ride so far, with the club recently sanctioned by the French football financial watchdog, the DNCG. As head of Eagle Football, Textor is also the owner of Belgian club Molenbeek, who recently got promoted to the Belgian Pro League. However, things are not all running smoothly there either.

In reality, Textor’s hands on approach isn’t being received very well. While he has enjoyed some success at Botafogo, the choice to fire the whole of the Molenbeek’s staff 5 days before the 2023/24 campaign began has not gone down very well.

A goalkeeping coach at Molenbeek since 2019, Thierry Berghmans was amongst those who were set aside by the American owner. He spoke to La DH Les Sports, a Belgian newspaper, to express his concerns and his disapproval of the management by Textor.

“We were really surprised by the timing (of the sackings), it is really ridiculous only 5 days before the start of a new season,” explains Berghmans. “If you want to change staff, do it right at the start of the pre-season. Taking a step back, I think he (Textor) believed we would be crushed by Lyon and that would have been a good excuse to fire us,” he adds. The Belgian side won 1-0 in their friendly against Lyon last month.

When reflecting on the overall management by Textor of the club, while Molenbeek did get promoted, Berghmans underlines the difficult circumstances which the staff and the players were working in: “I cannot count the number of times he put pressure on us, making the threat of breaking certain players’ contracts if we did not play certain players. We had prepared the promotion to the first division perfectly (…) and in two months, he destroyed what we