FC Honga’s financial difficulties became public before the finals of the Euro qualifying tournament.
FC Honka from Espoo is not applying for a place in next season’s Veikkausliiga, he says Helsingin sanomat newspaper.
Next season’s league license applications must be submitted to the license committee no later than today, Friday. MTV Urheilu reports earlier on Friday that the salaries of Honga’s players and coaching are still unpaid for October.
KTP, which was relegated from the Veikkausliiga last season, and Gnistan, which lost to IFK Mariehamn in the league qualifier, have submitted their league license applications. This is a normal procedure every year, that even those who are not in the lower league make a league license application, as if just in case.
When Honka does not apply for a league place, it will probably be offered to Gnistan first, if it meets the license conditions.
Shortly after HS reported that Honka will not apply for a league place for next season, also reported on the matter MTV Sportswho had taken over after serving as Honga’s captain in the season that ended Henri Aalton message to the players.
Aalto said in his message, among other things, that “Honka ry, JYP (Football Players’ Association) and our staff work together to make sure that we get what we deserve and help in everything that is needed”.
The news about Honga’s financial difficulties came out just before the final of the Euro final tournament. In these finals, Honka and VPS played for who will grab the last spot in the Veikkausliiga for next year’s Conference League qualification.
VPS beat Honga in that pair of matches. At the same time, Henri Aalto’s career ended. Aalto criticized his club’s announcement in an interview with .
– Every time Honga has financial difficulties, I am frustrated by how poorly things have been communicated and managed between the players, coaching and other personnel. Nothing is announced in advance. And when things happen, even then you have to ask for information and live in the dark.
– It’s a bigger problem for me than whether there are financial difficulties or not. The industry is difficult and all kinds of things happen all over the world. It affects everyone. But you have to be able to talk about things and respect people – to face things with dignity and pride, not secretly and arbitrarily.
Honka played in the Veikkausliiga for the first time in 2006–2014. In that period, the team placed three times in the SM silver and won the Finnish Cup 2012.
At that time, the club’s representative team was run by Pallohonka Oy. After the 2014 season, FC Honka ry, which owned the league venue, canceled the contract for the management of the league venue with Pallohonga. In 2015, Pallohonka Oy went bankrupt.
After that, Esport Honka Oy started to run Honga’s representative team. Honka played in the years 2015 and 2016 for the second team, and in 2017 for the first team. From 2018, Honka played again in the Veikkausliiga, finishing twice in bronze.