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- The 2016–17 season was Oud-Heverlee Leuven's 15th competitive season in professional football and the team's first season at the second level following their second relegation from the Belgian Pro League. Following a poor start the team only won their first match near the end of September on matchday seven. The form continued and OH Leuven kept struggling all season to set a consistent string of decent performances despite pre-season hopes of immediately regaining promotion to the Belgian First Division A. The team ended 5th in the opening competition and when despite a good start in the closing competition the performance started dropping, threatening to cause the team to end in the bottom four, manager Emilio Ferrera was sacked and replaced with Dennis van Wijk. Van Wijk could not improve the results and his main task involved in avoiding relegation, in which the team succeeded only on the very last day of the competition in a won home match against direct competitors Lommel United. On top of the lacklustre season regarding performances, the club also experienced a turbulent season regarding ownership and management: in September 2016, chairman Jimmy Houtput was alleged to have offered the club as a "conduit" to allow third-party companies to gain ownership of football players in England. Houtput claimed he was "merely trying to obtain the identity of the possible investor(s) and would never take part in illegal activities to circumvent the third-party ownership", but subsequently resigned as OH Leuven chairman on 30 September. Chris Vandebroeck stepped in as care-taking chairman but has not been replaced since. In February 2017, Vandebroeck announced that the team had formed a pre-agreement with a Chinese investment company to perform a takeover of OH Leuven, stating that following the relegation a financial injection was needed to remain competitive. In reaction to a wave of criticism from supporters that the club would be sold to foreign investors, a group of supporters created a project called "OHL op Dreef" which managed to find a group of Flemish investors and entrepreneurs from the Leuven region willing to invest in the club. The group finally made a counter-offer and in the months that followed it became clear that the Chinese investment group was not following up on their commitments and would be backing out the investment. This seemed to give the Flemish investors the leading edge, but surprisingly, OH Leuven announced early May they had again signed a new pre-agreement, but now with a set of Thai investors, more specifically the King Power International Group led by Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha who already owns Leicester City. Vichai's son Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha would become CEO of OH Leuven. (en)
- Oud-Heverlee Leuven neemt in het seizoen 2016/17 deel aan de Proximus League en Croky Cup. (nl)
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