FC Utrecht’s owner: "Forget about Concordia, the ship can wait in the sea, right now I am talking about Mihai Neşu!"

But he was busy talking about Mihai Neşu, the football player who had won him over, both as an athlete and as a human being. See what a Dutch football club owner looks like and read about how he thinks, find out what motivates a really rich man and what are the values of a man who says that “I didn’t make a promise to Mihai Neşu. I told him that his place would always be here, thus showing my availability for an infinite number of promises.”

There are charming people in the world, charming in their admitted imperfection, which they have come to terms with. Read here about a character who will warm your soul and watch at the end a video message from Van Seumeren to Neşu!

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At 61, the man is getting ready to embark on his final challenge: a “tour” on the Silk Road (Turkey-China). In the meantime, he will have surpassed the barrier of 30 million euro invested in the football club, and his companies will have continued to lift objects weighing thousands of tonnes and to carry them to the four corners of the world.

Van Seumeren is an eccentric character even for Dutch standards: a 61-year old man, brought up in a wealthy Catholic family, the fourth of eleven children. He only talks to the press twice a year. But he made an exception for a dialogue with the Romanian newspaper close to Mihai Neşu.

A company manager at 23, ranked in the Top 200 of the wealthiest people in Holland, he lives in a modest house in a small village near Utrecht. Along with his wife, he travelled on foot from his home to Athens. It was his way of celebrating the Olympic spirit in 2004. He then cycled from Berlin to Sankt Petersburg. “It’s not the money that shape my life, but the challenges”, he often says.

FC Utrecht’s owner has several companies which lift and carry barges, containers or installations weighing thousands of tonnes. He rounded out his wealth with businesses in the petrochemical, civil engineering and marine operations sectors. The world’s map is covered with his successful operations: the setting up of equipment for a refinery in Venezuela, the transportation of 150-tonne pipelines to Quebec or of 2 nuclear reactors weighing 1,150 tonnes each to Kuwait. Van Seumeren’s greatest pride remains, however, the salvaging, in 2001, of the nuclear powered submarine Kursk.

Behind the bank accounts, van Seumeren’s life is made up of his childhood hobbies, which he still enjoys today: he fishes in the lake behind his house, he reads almost every day, he watches on TV only the news and the football matches. “I go to the cinema for the movies; I never watch them at home. I love Julie Christie; I named my daughter Larissa, after the character she played in Doctor Zhivago”. His daughter now runs the Seumeren Foundation which provides food to the poor people in Benin and teaches the children from Ghana to read and write.

Frans van Seumeren divorced his first wife when he was 32 and remarried. He says that, in 1983, all his businesses had arrived on the verge of disaster, but he got back on his feet and, in 2000, took over his most important competitor on the Dutch market. He has been the owner of FC Utrecht since 2008.

He spends a week in Paris every year, listens to Steve Winwood and Peter Gabriel, and admits serenely that he stopped being a Catholic a long time ago, but that he rediscovers again and again the meaning of Creation, “during my silent walks in the mountains, for days on end”.

With a look on his face which reminds me of the grandfather’s picture from every storybook in the world, he speaks about Mihai Neşu as if he were a younger brother of his. He smiles like a kind-hearted man and bursts into a loud laughter, hugging us when we first meet. Yes, he is an eccentric fellow, even for Dutch standards.

“There are many people that I know who are perfectly healthy, but who are dying or have already died in their head” - Frans Van Seumeren

“When I was young, I never, not even once, dreamt of myself as a mature and wealthy man. Instead, I wanted to be the best in absolutely everything that I did. And I dreamt of becoming a man, the best one at something. When I became a man, and the best one in a particular area, bam! All of a sudden, I was also wealthy” - Frans Van Seumeren

23 was Frans’s age when he became the manager of the family-owned company van Seumeren, which specializes in the petrochemical industry, transport, the lifting and carrying of barges, containers and heavy equipment

237 million euro was van Seumeren’s fortune, according to the July 2011 estimations by quotenet.nl, placing him at number 120 among the wealthiest people in Holland

VAN SEUMEREN SPEAKS FONDLY OF MIHAI NEŞU, WITH LUCIDITY AND IN A TOUCHING WAY ABOUT LIFE AND SPORT:
“THE ONE WHO FEELS IS STRONGER THAN THE ONE WHO KNOWS”

In the private loge on the 4^th floor of the Gaalgenward Stadium, one feels like in an old Dutch port, because of the mixture of Oriental feel and modern technology. Van Seumeren watches the games in a room where he transposed himself along with all his seeming paradoxes: a vintage cupboard made of pieces of scraped wood, a stainless steel bar, tens of buttons and controls, a huge sofa with Turkish pillows. On the walls, the autographed T-shirts of Gerrard, Kuyt and Carragher. And above them, pictures of the Kursk.

We have been waiting for a few minutes, but we got here early. He shows up at half past; we have already gotten used to the annoying civilized precisions of the Dutch life. I turn toward a picture of the club owner’s face made up of hundreds of mini-photos with images from the matches that FC Utrecht has played along the years. Then I look at a wall entirely covered with a single snapshot: FC Utrecht-Sheffield United, July 1973. Above it, in capital letters: “No guts, no glory”.

“I also used to play football back then!” van Seumeren says, entering the room with a wide smile on his face. “Let’s have a sit. Do you like it here?”

One wouldn’t bet a single cent on him being the team’s owner: with a ruddy complexion, cheerful and plainly dressed, he closes his eyes when he tells a story which touches him. Not because he chooses his words carefully, but simply because he relives with intensity the sensations he felt during the events that he describes.

“You got to have the guts and to love it. You got to be crazy about it!”

- Mr. van Seumeren, have you been any happier these last three years, since you became FC Utrecht’s owner?
- I knew, even before I took over, that one had to be crazy to finance a football club. I knew it. And, these last three years, I understood that one had to be completely nuts to do it. I mean, you got to have the guts and to love it. Obviously, you got to be crazy about it J I feel good doing what I do.

- But are you pleased with the team’s evolution these last seasons?
- No, I’m not pleased with what we’ve accomplished so far at FC Utrecht. Perhaps only last year, when we made it to the Europa League groups, I had the feeling that it’s possible that I attain my objective. Only that it’s possible, not that we were close. We had a very good team, with Van Wolfswinkel, who now plays for Sporting Lisbon, with Mihai Neşu, with Mertens, who was transferred to Ajax, or Vorm, who now plays in the Premier League. My objective, since I got involved, is that FC Utrecht becomes one of the first 5 teams in Holland.

About Neşu: “This guy is wonderful!”
- What changed after Neşu’s accident?
- We got to be honest: something dramatic happened. Dramatic! It’s heart-breaking, especially when you look at him and know he’s an athlete. Of course, it’s a tragedy even for somebody who makes his living in a different way, but in this case it’s even worse: a professional athlete, who used to accomplish a lot with his body, can no longer use it! Mihai’s first initiative after the accident was to set up the Foundation, to do something for his people, for the Romanians. Well, this is fantastic! Simple and fantastic. We thought about organizing a match for him, and he thinks about doing something for other people! And you know what? When I personally proposed this match to him, he turned me down. What can I say? This guy is wonderful!

- Who won you over first: Mihai or the defender Neşu?
- You know, I like the man, but it was the player who won me over. Wow! Always attacking, fighting, risking! His crazy jumps to head the ball, his kamikaze charges, they were terrible! When I saw how frail he was, that made me even prouder that we had such a player. The skinny guy, not very tall either, but so feisty!

- There are many ideas that I understand you have applied, both in your life and in your career, and that I also find in Mihai’s words.
- He’s a perfectionist, like me. I see myself as a climber who searches every time for the biggest challenge. Mihai lost, at least for now, some of his means, and this is all the harder for somebody who asks so much of himself.

No guts, no glory
- A secret of the success of the Dutch entrepreneur of the year 2011: he works with people whom he knows since childhood, ancient colleagues, neighbours. Isn’t it risky?
- Ha-ha-ha! Yes, it’s true. I’d rather have by me, in any kind of project, people who grew up in a culture close to the one that I evolved in. This is also very efficient: these people feel, guess, and understand, sometimes even without words. The ones who feel are stronger than the ones who know. Yes, I can say that, if I have to choose between two collaborators with the same level of qualification and experience, I’ll choose the one who grew up closer to Utrecht. It’s not a whim: experience has shown me that this is the right path to follow.

- When do you rely on experience and when do you rely on intuition?
- Well, when we accepted to salvage the Russian submarine Kursk, I had a hunch, but I relied on experience! (He laughs loudly, and pats me on my knee with the palm of his hand, like a grandfather after he’s just finished telling a story). I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished on that project. And I’ll tell you why: the truth is that nobody, I mean nobody had the guts to salvage it! This is the reality! Everybody feared failure, which, at this level, would have been a resounding failure, putting a label on a company forever.

“You give up as football player, you survive as human being”
- When did you think about...
- You know what I want to tell Mihai? Of course, we talk to each other, we see each other, but I just had the idea now.

- Tell me.
- "Mihai, look for goals, and then for the ways to accomplish them! I’ll help you with the goals! This way, you’ll be busy building things and, without you realizing it, your life will change.”

- You thought about it while we were talking about the Kursk...
- Yes, all challenges move me: when I visited Mihai in the rehabilitation clinic, I was shocked at how optimistic he was. He told me, ‘Frans, don’t worry, in 6-7 months I’ll play football again!’ I didn’t know what to think back then. I wished that was true, but you have to accept life as it is, in order to make it better. Four months ago I found a changed Mihai: he was beginning to understand. He was sadder, I was even afraid that his soul would darken. I told him, ‘Man! It’s bad-luck! Simply bad-luck! That’s all! Enough with it!’ (He pats my knee again).

- It sounds as if accepting in his head that his career as a football player has come to an end helps him keep moving forward in his life.
- The reality is that Mihai will go through some tough moments, which he can maybe only imagine right now, as he heard from other people’s experiences. But I believe that the one essential moment has been surpassed: he understood, a few months ago, that his football career is over. When he gave up on himself as football player, I think that Mihai won his survival as human being. It’s just my opinion, but I see it as a necessary step.

The newspapers ritual: fingers, paper and pleasure
- What is the next adventurous trip that you plan on embarking on?
- In the summer of 2013 I’ll ride on my bike, with my wife, from Istanbul to China. We’ll retrace the Silk Road route. But that’s it! This is the final adventure, the final trip. Obviously, for physical reasons only.

- You have confirmed the confidence your parents had in you, by taking over the family business. You have accomplished a lot and you have your own family. You are one of the wealthiest people in Holland and you own a football club, as a hobby. Do you still read the newspaper in the morning, with the same excitement as you used to do in your youth?
- Ha-ha! I don’t give interviews very often, but you sure know a lot about me! Yes, I’ll always do the same thing: first I open the sports page, then the financial page. I wake up and I find on the table 3 newspapers, the same ones that I have been reading for years. I glance at the front page, then, every day, I go directly to the sports page. I smell the newspaper ink, I feel the paper beneath my fingers. It’s a small ritual, a hobby. The feeling cannot be expressed. Actually, I believe you know what I’m talking about :D

The ship which sank during the interview
“I got four phone calls while you were doing the interview”, the football club’s press officer says, biting his lips. The situation of the Costa Concordia (photo below), the ship which had run aground in the Adriatic Sea, had the Dutch national TV station and several European newspapers fret about whether van Seumeren would repeat the Kursk operation.

“I’m sorry, there was no way we would have known that”, I try a lame excuse. The press officer reassures me. To van Seumeren, what can be salvaged will be salvaged. The ship was already run aground, anyway. “It’s not the money that shape my life, but the challenges”, the owner of FC Utrecht repeats.

“Nothing in the world can compare to the feeling that you are good, when you really are good” - Frans van Seumeren

“I didn’t make a promise to Mihai Neşu. I told him that his place would always be here, thus showing my availability for an infinite number of promises” - Frans van Seumeren

30 million euro is the sum invested by Frans van Seumeren in FC Utrecht, from 2008 to 2011; the team ranked on the 9^th, 7^th and 9^th position respectively in the last three seasons

YOU CAN READ HERE A MULTIMEDIA STORY ABOUT MIHAI NESU, WRITTEN BY OUR CHIEF EDITOR, CATALIN TOLONTAN, BEFORE CHRISTMAS