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Reusable cups are becoming part of stadium reality across Europe. For clubs, the harder question is what happens around them: queues, staffing, fraud, cleaning, and whether the matchday experience still feels smooth when thousands of people move through the same system.
This article explores how Club Brugge and KV Mechelen approached that challenge during their first season, what their experience says about reuse under real stadium pressure, and which lessons other clubs can take from it.
By Joachim Stelmach
When reuse becomes a matchday issue
Many changes in football arrive through regulation. The harder part starts after that, when clubs need to turn a rule into a working matchday process.
Reusable cups are a clear example. The principle is easy to understand. The operational reality is harder. A stadium has to serve drinks quickly, keep exits moving, limit staff pressure, reduce losses, and avoid turning a practical change into a supporter frustration point.
That is why reusable packaging no longer sits only in sustainability discussions. In many clubs, it now belongs in conversations about stadium operations.
At KV Mechelen, the issue became clear after the club had already tried a lighter-touch model. Supporters were expected to return cups without a deposit structure. The result was visible after matches, both in the stands and in the cleanup workload.
“In Belgium, football stadiums are required to use reusable cups for drinks. Before Borro, the club tried a full season without a deposit on each cup, expecting fans to bring them back themselves. That did not really happen. People left the cups in the stands, so there was a lot of cleaning up to do. That gave us the opportunity to work with a new deposit system, and that is how we started working with Borro.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
Once cups stop returning in an orderly way, the problem does not disappear. It shifts elsewhere.
The club’s priorities shape the solution
At KV Mechelen, the change did not happen in isolation. The club was already rethinking its beverage setup with a new beer partner, which created a chance to redesign part of the process from the start rather than forcing a fix onto an older system.
“When I arrived at the club, we were already in talks with a new beer partner, so we had the opportunity to start from a blank page. We wanted to invest in smart solutions because we believed they could help us reduce fraud and lower personnel costs.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
That context matters because clubs rarely make these decisions for symbolic reasons. They do it when a new setup promises a better answer to familiar operational pressures.
Club Brugge adds the scale perspective
KV Mechelen and Club Brugge approached the same issue from the same starting point: reusable cups only work if the whole matchday process works around them.
In both cases, the question was not only about sustainability or compliance, but about speed, reliability, and whether the system could hold up across repeated home matches without creating extra friction for supporters or staff.
Mattijs Buyck, the Fan Operations Director at Club Brugge, describes the final decision in those terms.
“What made the difference was how smooth Borro works. It’s the most innovative system we tested, with the best balance between technology and value for money.”
Mattijs Buyck, Club Brugge
The emphasis here is not on novelty. It is on whether the system fits the reality of matchday service.
Thomas Rypens, the Innovation & Insights Director at Club Brugge, shared the club’s first results after a full run of home matches.
Across 23 games, the system was tested in real matchday conditions, with consistent volumes and repeated use:
- Close to 1,000,000 cups handled
- Around 45,000 cups per game filled and returned
- Unlimited number of cups can be stacked and returned in one go
- The system can handle 3,000 returned cups per minute, per return point
- Cashback refunded to fans within two minutes
- One third fewer staff needed for returns
- Queues reduced to almost zero
- Fraud losses down by an estimated €10,000 per season
The strongest test comes after full-time
Reusable cup systems are tested hardest when the crowd starts moving. That is when process design becomes visible.
At KV Mechelen, one detail captures the scale of that pressure well.
“As of now, it is simple for fans to use. In our biggest stand, which has around 5,000 places, we can manage around 5,000 cups within the first five minutes after the game ends. We see that it moves really fast, and there are no lines at the return points. From that side, we are really happy.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
That kind of throughput matters because post-match flow shapes the final impression of the event. A process that holds up at that point removes one of the most visible sources of friction.
The Club Brugge experience points in the same direction.
“We saw the return rate climb, queues disappear, and fraud disappear entirely. Our staff got used to it after one match. Fans adapted just as fast. The experience is a lot better now.”
Mattijs Buyck, Club Brugge
Across both clubs, the same areas keep coming into view: speed, cleaner flows, and fewer weak points in the process.
Implementation still has rough edges
What strengthens the KV Mechelen case is that it does not skip the difficult part. The rollout brought early complications, both technical and human. The club’s cup shape was different from the standard format, and matchday volunteers needed time to get comfortable with a more technology-led routine.
“In the beginning, it was difficult for some of our volunteers because it was a new way of working, and many of them were not used to technological solutions. At first, they were a bit scared of it. But people really started to trust it. They know how it works, they are happy with it, and the flow improved a lot in the first five games. We also did not see any loss in sales numbers. We sold the same amount of beer compared with the previous season.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
One of the first concerns around any service change is whether it will slow transactions or reduce volume. In this case, the adjustment period did not lead to that outcome.
Supporters accept change when the process works
The Mechelen case also says something important about supporter reaction. This is a club where fan opinion carries weight, which makes any operational change more sensitive than it might be elsewhere. Yet the response was shaped less by the fact of change and more by how the new process felt in practice.
“We have a strong supporter structure at the club, and our fans always have a say in what we do. We gave them the chance to show whether a system without a deposit could work, and in the end we agreed that it could not. When we introduced the smart system, they did not really mind it at all because it was quick, they got their money back, and they immediately saw the benefits. They also saw that the stadium was cleaner.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
Where Borro enters the picture
Only after the club side is clear does Borro become relevant as more than a name in the background.
The company is a Belgian startup founded in 2024 by Glenn Verhaege, Niels Willems, and Kasper Albers. Its focus goes beyond football, covering high-volume environments such as stadiums, concert halls, theme parks, and other closed venues. The central idea is a digital deposit system for reusable packaging, developed for settings where scale and flow matter as much as sustainability.
That wider scope helps explain why the football cases stand out. Club Brugge and KV Mechelen were dealing with a live operational problem, not looking for a brand story. The relevance of Borro came from whether it could fit into that reality and keep improving once real matchdays exposed the weak spots.
Marchau’s comments on the season-long relationship underline that part of the story.
“What I noticed throughout the season is that they are constantly improving their product. Even when things are already working well, they still want to improve and do better. That comes from their position as a software company rather than a hardware company. They listen to our concerns, look for solutions, and keep developing the product.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
He also points to the club-side value of visibility during live operations.
“They always want to make sure the dashboarding is right. We have our numbers, we can see everything, and we have live scanning, so we can actively see how each bar and each person is performing. That has real value for us.”
Michael Marchau, KV Mechelen
At that stage, the conversation moves beyond return points alone. It becomes a question of whether the club has a system it can monitor, refine, and adapt over time.
What other clubs can take from these cases
The two Belgian examples point to a practical set of lessons.
- First, reusable packaging should be treated as a stadium process. The main issues are operational, not symbolic.
- Second, post-match flow is one of the clearest tests of quality. A system either handles peak movement well or exposes its limits immediately.
- Third, some internal adaptation is part of the process. The real question is how quickly staff and volunteers settle into the new routine.
- Fourth, supporter acceptance follows usability. When the process is quick and easy to understand, resistance tends to stay low.
- Fifth, the long-term value of a system often depends on what happens after launch. Clubs need something that can still be improved once live conditions reveal what works and what does not.
Final Word
Club Brugge and KV Mechelen show how quickly reusable cups move from compliance into core matchday operations. Once they enter the stadium, they affect service speed, supporter flow, staff routines, fraud prevention, and post-match cleanliness.
That is why these cases matter beyond Belgium. They show what clubs are really evaluating when they look at reuse systems. Not the principle. The process.
And in both examples, the key standard seems simple: can the club make reuse work without making matchday feel slower, heavier, or less enjoyable? That is the question more clubs will be asking next.
