FC Amager

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FC Amager (or FCA) is a future Danish football club, starting July 1st, 2008 as a merger between football clubs Boldklubben Fremad Amager, Kløvermarkens Forenede Boldklubber and Amager Fodbold Forening, currently playing in Danish 2nd Division East and the Danish Serie 1 under Københavns Boldspil-Union^[1]. The team will most likely be playing it's home games at Sundby Idrætspark, the current home ground for the lead of the project, Fremad Amager, on which license the future club will be playing.

The vision for the Amager merger was announced at a press conference at Fremad Amager headquarters on Tuesday March 20, 2007 by Faroese footballer and future club owner, Todi Jónsson; real estate agent, sponsor and member of the Fremad Amager board, Hanne Nørrisgaard; new sponsor Eik Bank representative, Claus Bodenhoff^[2]; and former Fremad Amager chairman Karsten Østergaard. The primary goal of FC Amager will be promotion to the Danish Superliga by the 2010/2011 season at the latest and to function as a football academy for young promising footballers from the Faroe Islands and Amager^[3]. The football academy will house 20-25 young players from the Faroe Islands and other small nations.^[4]

The press conference was subsequently followed up by another press conference on March 26 in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, due to the great interest shown by the country's private sector and the investors close connections to the country.^[5][6]

The reason why the team does not exist before August 2008, is that the deficit of 3 million DKK in Fremad Amager had to be paid out by the former majority share holder before the Dansk Boldspil-Union deadline of submission on March 31, 2007. As it was not realistic to keep the original plans of playing from 2007, it was decided to postpone the merge for one year. Furthermore none of the participating clubs had the organisation or facilities needed to secure promotion to the Superliga.

Contents 1 Background 2 Logo and mascot 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Background

Before the press conference the merge and new professional team was know under different work titles: 'Amager FC' (a different football club already exists under this name), 'Øens Hold' (English: The Island's Team, not to be mistaken with Odense Boldklub and the coorportation between Funenian clubs) and finally plain 'Amager' (a joint team for promising youngsters from Amager) and had been underway since the summer of 2005.

However, the plans did not proceed before a group consisting of four Faroese investors under the name of Fremad Amager Invest A/S and with the footballer Todi Jónsson as the front man, at an extraordinary press general assembly on March 15, 2007 took over the majority of the shares (51,7%) of Fremad Amager^[7].

The other investors in the new company were composed by an investment group from the Faroe Islands and two investors from the Copenhagen IT-business, and had a starting capital of 1,5 million DKK^[8]. The previous majority stockholder, controversial real estate agent Hanne Nørrisgaard, still represents a third of the shares. According to Todi Jónsson, the plans to take over a club in Denmark to use for Faroese players started two years prior to the takeover, with concrete dialogue with Fremad Amager starting 1,5 years prior to the takeover^[9].

Kastrup Boldklub were originally supposed to have joined the merger, but due to their engagement in Amager United and the conflicts in getting out of that arrangement, including the court trial against Amager United Aps in connection with the break-up, the club chairman, Søren Mogensen, has stated that this will not happen^[10].

It is expected that Kastrup Boldklub will join the merger at a later stage, as the club was one of the two original promoters of the Øens Hold-project. The question of joining FC Amager has been raised at an extraordinary general assembly with a positive result, and the promoters and investors of FC Amager has stated that there is an open invitation to all football clubs on Amager to join the new team.

The latest attempt to join the football clubs of Amager and create a competitive professional team with Superliga ambitions came at the initiative of a number of people in Kastrup Boldklub and Fremad Amager, when it was realized that no Amager club would be economically strong enough to survive in the Superliga on its own^[11].

Fremad Amager took contact to Kastrup Boldklub and Tårnby Boldklub (the two clubs behind Amager United) to discuss the possibilities of a future collaboration, to which the Kastrup Boldklub board were positive. After an informal meeting in June 2005 (XX) between Karsten Østergaard (then chairman of the amateur side of Fremad Amager and member of the board) and Gorm Thorius (then chairman of Kastrup Boldklub) as well as Søren Mortensen (then representative of Kastrup Boldklub in the board of Amager United), the group invited all 35 football clubs from Amager to a co-operation through a grand meeting on October 13, 2005. Representatives from 10 clubs showed up and expressed a wish to join non-binding discussions about future collaboration and the completion of a work document for the basis of decision for establishing of the team. Later, however, it turned out that the idea of a joint professional team did not have the backing of a number of the clubs boards and general assemblies. After the meeting in June 2005, Gorm Thorius and Søren Mortensen left the Amager United board, due to accusations of being disloyal to the club when entering talks with Fremad Amager. The disagreements between Kastrup Boldklub and Tårnby Boldklub were to be characteristic for the future of Amager united.

On November 14, 2006, after a long debate among the members of Kastrup Boldklub the vote was 80,2% for and 19,8% against^[12]. Shortly after the general assemblies in Amager FF and Kløvermarkens FB also agreed. Fremad Amager did not need a general assembly, as the amateur part of the club had waived the right to decide over the professional part of the club when Fremad Amager became a public limited company.

Shortly after the grand meeting, Tårnby Boldklub withdrew from Øens Hold due to their engagement in Amager United. Likewise AB 70 also withdrew from the talks due to their newly won promotion to the 2nd Division, as the merge would mean a relegation of their team to Danmarksserien.

In October 2006, this was followed up by the board of B1908 which had two representatives in Øen Hold. The board did not feel that the existing document for the basis of decision was good enough to be accepted at an extraordinary general assembly. Furthermore they could not surrender the sovereignty of the club, as they did not feel that the project was sustainable due to the lack of concrete major sponsors. Dragør Boldklub did raise the question at a general assembly on December 5, 2006 however the cub was not given the mandate to participate, as only one of the members of the club voted for the project. Neither Sundby Boldklub nor Sønderbro Fight agreed to a formal collaboration.

[edit] Logo and mascot

The future logo of FC Amager is drawn by the Faroese communication bureau Sansir and features a pair of angel wings (from the Fremad Amager nick name), a shield with Dannebrog and finally the club name in abbreviated form as the central elements of the design^[13]. FC Amager's club kits will be a combination of blue and white colours.

On May 21, 2007 Amager Bladet announced a contest to find the character to represent FC Amager as a mascot^[14]. The result should be announced at the Fremad Amager home game against Aarhus Fremad on June 10, 2007. The name of the mascot will be found in a separate contest in Amager Bladet during the summer of 2007.

[edit] See also

• Fremad Amager
• Football in Denmark
• Danish Second Division
• Amager

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• FC Amager official website (Danish)

Football in Denmark v • d • e
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