Koninklijke Voetbalclub Oostende, also called KV Oostende or KVO, is a Belgian football club from the city ofOstend, West Flanders. The team was founded in 1904 as VG Oostende and has the matricule No. 31.
History
In 1911, another club was created, AS Oostende, which would soon become the best club of the city, playing regularly in the second division in the 1930s. In the mid 1970s, AS reached the first division while VG was playing at the second level. The two clubs merged in 1981 to become KV Oostende. The new club played in the third division for eleven years, before finally promoting. In its first season on the second level, Oostende immediately promoted again, to the first division, where it would achieve its best result in the club history: a seventh place, in 1993–94. From 1995 to 2013, Oostende has been playing in the second division, except in 1998–99 and 2004–05, when it was at the higher level again, and in 2001–02 and 2002–03, when it played in the third division. In 1982, one year after the merger, VG Oostende had been re-founded at the lowest level of the Belgian football competition. The club first used the Armenonville stadium, which was the original ground of VG. In 2001, the stadium was declared unsafe, so the club had to groundshare with KV Oostende in the Albertparkstadion, until 2010. In 2013, the new VG Oostende also disappeared, after a financial breakdown. In August 2013, shortly after a new promotion to the highest level, it was announced that chairman and majority shareholder Yves Lejaeghere would be succeeded by a new chairman, businessman Marc Coucke. In the spring of 2016, the main tribune of the Albertparkstadion was rebuilt and the stadium was renamed the Versluys Arena with the capacity increased to 8,432. After a disastrous beginning to the 2017/18 season, manager Yves Vanderhaeghe was set free of his obligations, with the assistant manager, Adnan Čustović, being asked to take over. In December 2017 Marc Coucke announced that he would be leaving, after recently purchasing R.S.C. Anderlecht. It was then announced on 8 February 2018 that Peter Callant would replace Coucke as chairman. Coucke confirmed his continued interest in the club and that he remained a fan and would stay on as a minority shareholder. In May 2020 an investment group acquired KV Oostende Football Club and the new investors include Pacific Media Group, Chien Lee, Partners Path Capital and Krishen Sud.
