Page 47 of the programme serves as the official directory of FC Groningen‘s commercial power. Under the prestigious “Tenuesponsors” (Kit Sponsors) section, a collection of logos represents the elite financial backers whose names were printed directly on the players’ shirts. Alongside heavyweights like Essent, BAM, and Gasunie, sits the logo of Imtech.
In May 2013, Imtech was a titan of European technical services, a massive publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees. Seeing their logo on the FC Groningen kit was a symbol of absolute corporate stability. However, for a financial historian, this logo is a ticking time bomb. Just months before this programme was printed, the first cracks in the Imtech empire had begun to show regarding fraudulent projects in Germany and Poland. Yet, the corporate machine kept spinning, and their logo remained proudly displayed on the green and white shirts in the Euroborg.
A Look into the Future
Viewed from 2026, the presence of the Imtech logo is a chilling reminder of how quickly corporate empires can fall. In 2015, just two years after this match, Imtech spectacularly collapsed in bankruptcy, triggering one of the largest and most complex corporate fraud scandals in Dutch history. The fallout was massive, leaving thousands unemployed and shareholders wiped out. For FC Groningen, it meant scrambling to replace a premium kit sponsor. Today, this 2013 programme page acts as a fascinating historical artifact—a snapshot taken right on the precipice of a monumental corporate disaster, while the logo still projected an illusion of invincibility.