Espoo | Will FC Honga’s financial crisis spread to Esport’s second league club? This is how the executive director answers

Helsingin sanomat newspaper reported last week about the salary payment problems of betting league club FC Honga.

Honga’s players have gone without their salaries before last week’s Euro playoffs, where the Espoo club lost to Vaasa’s Palloseura. MTV Urheilu reported on the weekendthat Honka is even threatened with bankruptcy.

Another main league club from Espoo, Esport Oilers, who play in the men’s floorball F-League, is, like Esport Honka Oy, connected to the sports service group Esport.

Oilers Executive Director Jouni Vehkaoja says that Honga’s cash crisis does not affect the floor bandy club’s finances.

“We are two different species. Oilers is completely its own unit and Honka is its own Oy-based football club. If Honka were to cease operations, it would have no effect on the Oilers”, explains Vehkaoja.

Esports The support offered to the Oilers is not so much directly financial, but more about securing the conditions, says Vehkaoja.

“I can’t be worried about that. Although we have a great league team, the Oilers’ core activity is to get the children and young people of Espoo active.”

The association-shaped Oilers do not have shareholders, like the Oy-shaped Honga representative football. Problems would arise for the Oilers at that point if the finances of the Esport arena were to run into trouble.

“Esport has enabled the growth of the Oilers with its top conditions. It is extremely important for the Oilers and Espoo indoor bandy that Esportilla wipes the arena well in the future as well,” states Vehkaoja.

Oilers formerly known as Espoon Oilers. The championship pennants hanging from the ceiling of the Tapiola sports hall remind us of the successful history of the old name.

The Oilers won four Finnish championships in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2006.

The club later ran into financial problems. In 2013, a former employee of the club received a suspended prison sentence of one year and 10 months after embezzling 200,000 euros from the club’s coffers.

Esport was the Oilers’ biggest creditor. The floor bandy club owed the sports service company more than 100,000 euros.

The club moved under Esport in 2013. At the same time, its name was changed to Esport Oilers.

At that point, the club had less than 400 members. Last season, exactly 900 players who bought game passes played for the Oilers. Measured by the number of game passes, the club is the second largest in Finland after Helsinki’s Eräviikkini.