‘Overmars paid 150,000 euros for players who actually didn’t cost Ajax anything’

Dolf Roks (59) had expected to stay with Sparta until retirement age, but things turned out differently: technical director Henk van Stee put him aside after years of cold war, after which Ajax struck.

Sparta icon Roks – he worked for the club for 35 years – was head of the youth academy in Rotterdam in recent years. In that role he concluded a deal with Ajax: the Amsterdam club can remove a maximum of three players from Sparta each season in exchange for an annual amount.

“At the time I said to Marc Overmars: if Ajax removes players from Sparta for free, it hurts me. He then put 150,000 euros on the table for players for whom Ajax actually didn’t have to pay anything. That happened a number of times later.” , Roks tells RTV Rijnmond. He sat down with Overmars and closed the deal. “We were very happy with that, because it was money found. Clubs do not have to pay anything for boys under 12 years.”

However, not everyone within Sparta was happy with it. “We thought we were doing the right thing. But Van Stee (then technical director, ed.) thought otherwise.” He thought Roks was ‘not a good youth educator’. When Van Stee was promoted to the board in February 2021, Roks had to wait for his resignation. “And that moment has come.”

“I expected it to happen sooner, but it was my turn six months after his appointment as TD. Of course, Van Stee had the right to replace his head of youth academy if he thinks things are not going well. But then he must indicate why he thinks that,” concludes Roks, who now works for Ajax.