Ajax Amsterdam

Ajax Amsterdam has a mythical status in Europe and beyond, it has won over 30 Dutch titles, and 4 times the Europacup 1/Champions League , 2 times the Cup Winners Cup and one Uefa Cup. They have even won 2 World Club Championships. Ajax Amsterdam is reknown for its style of play, attacking, gutsy, even a bit arrogant sometimes, and has brought hundreds of star players from its academy in the last 60 years. Johan Cruyff, Marco Van Basten, Johan Neeskens, Frank De Boer, Daley Blind, Patrick Kluivert, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, Raphael Vandervaart, Frenkie De Jongh, Ryan Gravenbergh, etc...

In short, Ajax is an institute, a symbol of beautiful football, in a magnificent stadium, the Johan Cruyff Arena, just shy of 56000 seats. But since last season, things have gone downhill, fast!

One dickpic

The beginning of the downfall was the lay off of, director of football, Marc Overmars, after he got caught sending dickpics to female workers at the club, two years ago. Marc Overmars had done an amazing job up until then, at the transfer market. He managed to sell star players for record numbers, and always was able to pick up the next talent for a much lower fee. Marc Overmars was one of the key managers at the club behind the succes. Which almost brought them to another Champions League final in 2019, until Lucas Moura of Tottenham Hotspur decided otherwise in the dying seconds of the Champions League semi-final.

He was a tandem with Edwin Vandersar, former star goalkeeper of the club, and of Manchester United and Juventus Turin. Vandersar was general manager of the club and Overmars was director of football. It brought Ajax to new hights, up until that dickpic. Overmars was never replaced by the right person, and two years later, also Vandersar left the club.

The club started going downhill, but could luckily fall back on the great academy they have, new stars broke through from the youth academy. But new transfers were no success.

Last season, German Sven Mislintat was appointed as director of football.
His vision was one of investing, which means spending money on transfers in football. He bought 11 new players for 110 million EUR. But not one player his coach wanted. The coach, Maurice Steijn and the director were clearly not in line with eachother. This was a recipe for disaster. Just 3 months after his appointment, Sven Mislintat got fired, and one month later, after a disastrous start in the Dutch league, also Maurice Steijn, the coach had to go.

Ajax now is in a relegation spot in the Dutch league, with only 5 points out of 7 games, it sits in the 17th spot. With the next league game against league leaders PSV Eindhoven as the next game, things look hard to turn around.

Sports is not just business

This all shows that a game like football is run by money, but not only money. An investment of 110 million EUR in new players is no guarantee for success. In sports, there is a lot more that comes into play. All areas of the club need to be in line. Everybody has to have the same goal, to be able to succeed. That is why some clubs keep performing with a much lower budget than Ajax Amsterdam (160 million EUR). A good structure in the club is a great start, the same vision by all coaches, from youth to first team, and especially in the board room is much more important than the amount of money that is spent in a transfer window.

That makes this sport so interesting!

Sincerely,

Pele23

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