Last updated: Dec 29, 2025, 8:52 PM
Nico Dijkshoorn contributes Football International have strongly criticized Feyenoord. The columnist finds it incomprehensible that John de Wolf continues to serve as ‘cultural guardian’. “No one can move him from his place,” it is said.
De Wolf has been part of the technical staff at Feyenoord since 2019. Every time a new trainer comes in, he has to deal with the culture guardian in De Kuip. “That must be quite a frustration for new trainers at Feyenoord, that you always have someone sitting next to you on the bench who monitors everything you want to change as a new trainer,” Dijkshoorn concludes.
“I don’t know what agreement Feyenoord has with John de Wolf, but it seems that he has managed to secure a lifelong contract. Maybe he can be paid in groceries or he can have his entire house re-decorated every year for free. It must be something like that. Or John knows something about De Kuip that should never come out.”
Dijkshoorn looked with pleasure at the arrival of Robin van Persie at Feyenoord. With this he expected another ‘wild, contrary trainer’ in De Kuip. “He came back from the club as a kid and immediately started acting wild and crazy.”
Appointing Sem Steijn as captain was Van Persie’s first much-discussed choice. “That will go down in history as the worst decision ever made by a Feyenoord coach. What makes it all so crushingly beautiful is that Robin van Persie had to tell John de Wolf that at some point.”
Dijkshoorn tries to paint a picture of the situation. “Van Persie said: ‘John, I’ve thought about it some more, but I want to make someone captain who has no club love whatsoever. Someone who was pissing over a Feyenoord flag a few months ago. A boy who wears his hair like an Amsterdammer. We’re just going to do it completely differently, John. Sem Steijn is our captain.’”
Dijkshoorn mainly blames De Wolf for not giving Van Persie any resistance. “No matter what happens, whoever comes in with a diploma and whatever they come up with at the start of the season, no one can move him from his place. At Feyenoord he will forever be the man who explains to a player just before a substitution what that new strange coach has come up with.”
