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Alex Kroes has already conducted research into Ajax’s summer transfers, writes Algemeen Dagblad. Under the leadership of the new director of football affairs Sven Mislintat, the Amsterdam club spent 108 million euros on 12 new players. Future general manager Kroes is questioning both the quality of the players and the transfer fees paid by Ajax.
“With interim director Jan van Halst and the Supervisory Board, he apparently had his back in order, precisely the people who had given him the assignment for a thorough renovation. The complaints of (Maurice, ed.) Steijn were easily countered by them: Here spoke a trainer who simply came up against his own limitations. But that was beyond Alex Kroes’s calculations,” writes Sjoerd Mossou in an extensive analysis.
“The incoming director of Ajax is an absolute expert on the transfer market, with all the mechanisms, (unwritten) rules, networks, tricks and interests that go with it,” says the journalist. “Kroes may not start until mid-March, his direct influence on the daily Ajax management is formally small, but the former agent did use his extensive network to get a complete picture of Mislintat’s ways.”
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Kroes also suspected that there might be more going on behind the scenes. “Not only the quality of the players came under scrutiny in those conversations, but also the buyout sums and the possible interests behind them. Hard evidence was difficult to collect for Mislintat’s critics, but the patterns in his deals raised many questions that also lived within Steijn’s Ajax staff.”
Kroes is the intended successor to Edwin van der Sar, who decided to resign at the end of May after much criticism. Kroes was nominated in August, but due to a non-competition clause with AZ, where he is currently director of International Football Strategy, the director was actually not allowed to hold a position at another football club for a year. After negotiations, AZ and Kroes have agreed that the latter can start in the Johan Cruijff ArenA on March 15, 2024.
