companies that in return would sponsor the Farum football team. Brixtofte was forced to step down as chairman and the club came close to bankruptcy. FC Nordsjælland (2003–present) In March 2003, Farum BK was bought by AKP Holding, the holdings company of local businessman Allan K. Pedersen, and in an effort to distance the club from the Brixtofte scandal, Farum BK was re-branded as FC Nordsjælland, named after the North Zealand (Danish: Nordsjælland) region to clarify the club was to represent both the region as well as the town in which the club is based. To reinforce the status as a regional team, a network of local football clubs from the surrounding area was created, consisting of around 66 teams, with the aim to highlight young talent in the region and bring it to national attention via FC Nordsjælland. The network is known as Fodbold Samarbejde Nordsjælland (FSN). The club's second year in the Superliga, first as Nordsjælland, struggled to improve on the previous year's outing. With its worst goal difference since turning professional, not one FCN player ended in the top ten goal scorers, fighting to avoid relegation for most of the season, ending the campaign in ninth place. The Wild Tiger fans, however, were rewarded with European football with the club's first appearance in the UEFA Cup; it beat Armenian team Shirak 6–0 on aggregate in the qualifying round, but were eliminated in the first round by Greek team Panionios. Christian Andersen was sacked at the end of the 2003–04 season, replaced by Johnny Petersen as head coach. The following two years under Johnny Petersen were spent avoiding relegation, with no success to speak of in either the Superliga or Danish Cup. Petersen's reign was not completely amiss, as he was noted for creating a good young team and the emergence of players Mads Junker and Anders Due. For the 2006–07 season, Morten Wieghorst was promoted from assistant to head coach, a position the former Celtic player would retain for five years. Wieghorst's first dilemma in charge of FCN was to fill the gap left by top scorer Mads Junker, sale to Dutch side Vitesse the previous winter. Morten Nordstrand came in on a free from nearby Lyngby after scoring 29 goals in the 1st Division that previous season. Nordstrand would go on to make an instant impact, topping the goal scorers charts for the first half of