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The Trouble with Ajax

October 6th, 2007 | By: Jan | 14 Comments »

It’s official. Henkie goes to Chelsea. He will be delivered with a nice ribbon with compliments from Ajax. The fallen Sons of Gods get rid of their coach and they get money for him too! Well done, Ajax. According to a wel-informed insider, young Ajax coach Adrie Koster (significant ere-divisie experience at Excelsior, Roda JC and other clubs) will coach Ajax ad-interim until Prodigal Son Marco van Basten (and John van ‘t Schip) will assume the top job next season.

Many people ask me, what happened to Ajax over the last years? Well, a couple of things…

1. Ajax is a public company
This means that investors and other peripheral parties want to see healthy figures. And that puts pressure on the club to every other season sell off one of the top players for a lot of money.

2. Bosman
Clubs like Ajax were hurt hardest of course. Ajax was never a “buying” club, but always tried to develop it’s own talent. Post-Bosman, money rules even more… In the last years, many interesting talents were lured away for money. The sad thing is, Ajax didn’t get stronger (mostly the money ended up in players/agents bank accounts) and the players never really developed well outside of Ajax (Wooter, Musampa, Roy, Van der Meyde)…

3. Loss of identity
Partly due to the public offering of shares, partly due to other reasons, Ajax lost it’s identity over the years. Some blame the Arena Stadium, other blame the 5th colonne behind the club….. But after chairman Michael van Praag and club conscience Arie van Eijden left the club so-called professional managers were taken onboard as chairman (Jaakke) and director Fonteyn). It’s obvious their link with the club and the fans is to say the least…non-existent. There seems to be no heart, no soul anymore… Jaakke and Fonteyn aren’t real Ajax men, and one wonders why there aren’t any Ajax members with the right credentials to run the club.

4. Distorted Reality Field
Ajax suffers from megalomania. They think they’re better and bigger than they really are. They were great (seventies, nineties) and they still can be one day. But they are not anymore. After Van Gaal left in the mid-90s (which is just after the Bosman arrest), Morten Olson took over. Van Gaal’s team was falling apart. The De Boer’s left, Davids, Kluivert, Seedorf…all gone. Overmars, Finidi…off to greener pastures. Olsen could chose for young talent, but the club wanted to keep on reaping. So Olsen started buying. And Ajax is good at developing players but not so good in buying players. Gabric, Juan, Wamberto, Rosales, Kinkladze, Sikora, Sonck, Demchenko, Fischer, Ledemenza, Tom Sier, Marcio Santos, Vierklau…

In those heydays of ego-tripping, Ajax invested a lot of money in satelite clubs in South Africa, Belgium (!) and God knows where else… What were they thinking?

Every time they hired a good coach (Olsen, Wouters, Adriaanse, Koeman, Blind) and gave them the charter to develop and use young talent and to qualify for the top of Europe. And everytime the players who excelled were sold and the coaches were kicked out… If these coaches I just listed were all so bad they needed to be kicked out, something structurally is wrong. Either the people appointing the coaches need to pack his bags? Or the expectations and assessments of these coaches was wrong… Because looking back, you can’t say these guys screwed up. Their successors (the king is dead, long live the king) didn’t do any better.

Ajax’ strategic plan states that they want to be among the top 16 clubs in Europe…

Be realistic and look at the money side of things. Ajax’ budget is 1/3 of the average big team in the Champions League. With that kind of money available and the Bosman arrest it is virtually impossible to be European top. Maybe once every 5 years. Maybe…

Top of Europe? That’s Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Juventus, Olympique Lyon, Liverpool, FC Porto, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Valencia, Glasgow Rangers, Inter Milan, PSV Eindhoven…and then there’s maybe a Czech club, or a Turkish or Russian club… Or a Norwegian club (Rosenborg?)… Or Celtic? Or the Spurs? Werder Bremen? AS Roma? Lazio? Sevilla?

So, the expectations are high, as if Ajax is the best of the pack, but the tools and resources available for the coaching staff is limited.

And then – as a coach – you can do two things: either you are a realist and try to explain to all involved that the expectations aren’t realistic wgich will get you sacked (Wouters, Adriaanse) or you play the game along and act the top coach but still you fail miserably (Koeman, Ten Cate)

In my view, this is what is needed:

1. Ajax needs to get people on management positions with Ajax blood in their veins.

2. Ajax needs to go back to youth development and – creatively – try to get a winning team together.

3. Ajax needs to innovate and try to create a way to get more (financial) recognition if a youth player is sold prematurely.

4. Ajax needs to find an Ajax minded rich dude (John de Mol??) who is willing to buy the publicly traded shares of the bourse and make the club a private entity again.

A club that brought us Benny Muller, Sjaak Swart, Piet Keizer, Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Wim Suurbier, Ruud Krol, Wim Kieft, Ruud Geels, Jesper Olsen, Peter Boeve, Martin van Geel, Louis van Gaal, Frank Arnesen, Soren Lerby, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Gerald Vanenburg, John van ‘t Schip, Aron Winter, Clarence Seedorf, Rob Witschge, Richard Witschge, Bryan Roy, Edwin van der Sar, Sonny Silooy, Stanley Menzo, Ronald and Frank de Boer, Frank Verlaat, Eric Regtop, Edgar Davids, Patrick Kluivert, Dennis Bergkamp, Marciano Vink, Michael Reiziger, Rafael van der Vaart, Wesley Sneijder, Daniel de Ridder, Mario Melchiot etc etc etc should be able to do it again….

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Comments

By The Trouble with Ajax | October 6th, 2007 at 8:36 am

[...] John wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]

By Bob | October 6th, 2007 at 8:53 am

Jan, what a terrific review of Ajax history and current club conditions. My son and I,for the first time, saw Ajax play in Amsterdam this past April, following a tour of the stadium, and I must tell you that there is still a “magic” feeling about the team and its stadium. You are absolutely right about the changes that have occurred to Ajax since the mid-’90s, and that they are not a top level club team today compared to its history. The information you have provided is thorough and detailed and very, very interesting. It is also very much appreciated.

Based on your comments about the club’s current status, why would van Basten come back as a coach? Money? Otherwise, it seems to me that a return to Ajax for him is a step “down” from what he is doing now. I would also assume that he is aware of what you describe in your blog, essentially meaning that any permanent positive changes would take a long time.

Thanks again for all of the terrific information you provide to us Oranje fans, and the time and effort you take to do it.

Posted from United States

By ferenc | October 6th, 2007 at 2:07 pm

thanks Jan, very good article – i understand better ajax’s situation.

Posted from Hungary

By goose | October 6th, 2007 at 3:21 pm

nice one Jan (though not so sure of your qualification of Olsen, Blind, Koeman and Wouters beeing good coaches) .. think esp. Bosman arrest was terrible for dutch football.. players leave at such an early age … think Ajax has the problem of their succesful history, they are known around the world..looks like they havent accepted/realised that those days are over and will never return, theres just no time/money to built a great team anymore…first they need to accept this, theyll never be more then sub when it comes to Europe!

Posted from Netherlands

By goose | October 6th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

BTW: may I hear some applause for Goose the visionair!! told you guys tenCate would be gone before Christmas….this is a great moment for me!! haha

WIJ HOUDEN VAN ORANJE!!!

Posted from Netherlands

By tjeerd | October 6th, 2007 at 7:21 pm

Good Article. As a Feyenoord fan I have to concede that Ajax needs to be a European powerhouse for Dutch pride. A stong Ajax is good for Dutch soccer.The history and tradition needs to be brought front and center with a team that competes with the AC Milans, Man U’s, Real’s etc. Its like a strong New York Yankees is good for baseball, A strong Notre Dame is good for US College Football. A strong Toronto Maple Leafs is good for Hockey.

John de Mol, Billionaire. If he has a sense and heart for Ajax, then he can bring Ajax to greatness.

By Lerkot | October 7th, 2007 at 2:50 am

I feel Ajax has sort of learnt to handle the Bosman problem. They write longer contracts and often sell in time to get good money.

By goose | October 7th, 2007 at 3:53 am

@Lerkot; thats true, its not like right after Bosman when the players just walked away free .. but dont you agree that Ajax still has to learn that they will never be the european powerhouse they once were..think its a mentality chhange wich has to grow, they have to be realistic!

Posted from Netherlands

By Lerkot | October 7th, 2007 at 4:16 am

Dont know if they have to learn anything really, they shouldnt give up fighting for being a top team, but they should do it in a different way really.

By Caleb | October 7th, 2007 at 4:40 am

I just read up on the Bosman ruling. I knew what it was before, but I didn’t know the whole story (it was a little before my time – I didn’t start really getting interested in football until sometime after the 98 world cup) and I was surprised to read that before the Bosman ruling clubs could stop a trade of a player even after their contract with the club expired. That doesn’t really make much sense to me.

But now I understand why the Bosman was bad for Dutch football and Ajax, with the other part of the Bosman meaning that teams weren’t limited to only 3 non-national players anymore. So now all of our great talent leaves for other clubs instead of staying and playing in the Dutch league. And now we have teams like PSV that field teams with only one Dutch player.

Posted from Japan

By goose | October 7th, 2007 at 4:40 am

they need to learn that theyll never be a top euro team ever again… they maybe will get to the semis of the CL once in a while but to say; “we want to be in the top 16 of euro clubs” is not realistic..you should always built on realism and not on some dreams…

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | October 7th, 2007 at 6:07 am

@Caleb: the main problem is with Bosman, that now a club like Ajax can invest years in young players. When they’re 18 they get a contract, say for three years. This would not be a huge salary of course, the guy is still young. When he performs well, Ajax wants to break open his contract, to pay him more and keep him longer. Some players refuse. They play another two years for a lower salary but after the contract expires, they can go to another club for free. Their managers negotiate a signing fee. And since the new club doesn’t need to pay a trasnfer sum, the signing fee can amount to millions of euros. Plus the big salary. So, if a guy like Drenthe would be out of his contract at Feyenoord (he wasn’t) then he could ask 5 Mio euros to sign for Real + a fat paycheck every year. In this way, young players are financially secure way before they’re 23 years old. The main problem is 1) clubs tend not to want to invest in youth development and 2) young and slightly unbalanced players get too much money too young and ruin their lives. Now, clubs will need to pay some sort of “development-fee” to the club where the youngster was developed, but that’s peanuts really. But when Kuyt left for Liverpool, part of the transfer money went to FC Katwijk, the amateur club Kuyt started before signing for FC Utrecht.

This is why Davids, Reiziger, Bogarde and Kluivert went to AC Milan, transfer free in 1996 (or 1997). Tcha-king!!! (cash register sound).

Posted from Australia

By Jan | October 7th, 2007 at 6:12 am

@Bob, I don’t think going to Ajax is a step down. Most coaches love the prestige of coaching a national side, but the real action is at clubs. Coz you are not limited to the talent at hand, you can actually buy the players or develop players for certain positions. Plus, you get to work with them daily and you can really mould your team and tactics. I don’t think Marco needs the money anymore , I do think Ajax is his club and he or his ego would love to coach/train them. Also, I know he is not looking forward to moving house again. His kids go to school in Holland etc. I think the only club he’d like to coach other than Ajax is AC Milan.