Flemish Nationalists' Deputy Chair to quit national politics for a job in football
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Loading... - Alexandre Aarle
- 29 Mar 2022
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The Deputy Chairman of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA has announced that he is retiring from national politics. Lorin Parys is a candidate for the position of CEO at Belgian professional football’s governing body the Pro League. Mr Parys has been a member of the Flemish Parliament since 2014 and has been Deputy Chairman of N-VA since 2018. He is also a local councilor on Leuven (Flemish Brabant) City Council. It is still unclear whether he intends to quit as a councilor too.
The VRT’s political editor Johny Vansevenant says that Lorin Parys had been looking for something new and "When the chance came to be at the head of Belgian professional football, it was something that he couldn't turn down. He discussed it for hours with N-VA's chairman Bart De Wever last weekend."
As a Flemish Brabant MP and with both the current Flemish Education Minister Ben Weyts and the former Federal Secretary of State Theo Francken coming from the same province it was highly unlikely that Lorin Parys would get the chance of becoming a minister himself.
He is now a candidate to become the new CEO of the Pro League. The Pro League’s previous CEO Pierre François resigned in January in the wake of the Operation Zero fraud case.
Wouter Vandenhaute (RSC Anderlecht) and Vincent Mannaert (Club Brugge) temporarily took over the role. A formal announcement on Lorin Parys’ appoint as Pro League CEO will be made later today. Lorin Parys is no stranger to the world of professional football. During the 2011-2012 football season he spent a year as Director of Operations at Club Brugge.
Who is Lorin Parys?
Lorin Parys (45) was born and raised in Leuven, where he is a member of the City Council. Together with Theo Francken, he is an important figurehead of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA in the Leuven area. He and his husband are foster and adoptive parents of a total of three children. Foster care has been one of the Lorin Parys’ major areas of interest during his time as an MP. He wrote a book on the subject in 2014.
Lorin Parys studied law at Leuven and Namur universities, before going abroad to study in South Africa and New York. He worked for several years as a lawyer in the United States. On his return to Belgium in 2003 he became spokesman for the then Flemish Minister of Economy Patricia Ceyssens (liberal). He also became active in real estate. For example, he played an important role in the contested Uplace shopping centre project. Read More...
