Crisis club Ajax in turmoil after 18 months of abject mismanagement


Ian Hawkey
  • English
  • Arabic

Twice the players had been sent to the safety of the dressing-rooms. The second time they learnt they would not be returning to the field. There had, between interruptions, been 55 minutes played of Dutch football’s biggest domestic clash.

The scoreline of ‘De Klassieker’, Ajax against Feyenoord, was already too much for some home supporters to bear. After they hurled more fireworks and other missiles on to the pitch, the match was suspended, at 3-0 to Feyenoord.

What followed on Sunday raised further concerns about safety. Groups of fans outside Ajax’s Johan Cruyff Arena attempted to enter the stadium’s principal VIP entrance, damaging the doors and their surrounds.

Riot police discharged tear gas to disperse them. Up in the area where Ajax directors were gathered, the custodians of one of European football’s great institutions barely knew where to look: Outside the stadium or on to an emptied pitch littered with firework cartridges? At the crushing scoreline? Or at their own management.

By the end of a terrible day, a decision had been taken to sack the club’s sporting director, Sven Mislintat, after a controversial four months for the German in the role, his the latest exit in a period in which key personnel have left Ajax step by quick step and the club’s status as the dominant force in Dutch football diminished.

Fans have become angry and, at a fixture that always carries an edge, against Feyenoord, the full extent of the crisis was played out in scenes of vivid, violent confrontation.

“A very black day,” the Ajax manager Maurice Steijn called it. “Shame on you,” posted the Netherlands Justice Minister – and would-be next prime minister – Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, addressing fans who had ignored instructions inside the arena not to throw fireworks.

“This no longer has anything to do with football or being a supporter. It’s playing with the safety of players, fellow supporters and yourselves.” Police yesterday announced 15 arrests and that two officers had been injured during the clashes outside the stadium.

The immediate consequences for Ajax could include being compelled to play a fixture, or fixtures, behind closed doors. This game will be completed in an empty stadium on Wednesday. In the medium term, the image of a club once so widely admired for its strong local identity, its cherishing of progressive football and for skilfully sustaining success within a football economy that favours superclubs from far wealthier leagues than the Netherlands, needs urgent repair.

The fall of Ajax has been sudden and scandal-ridden. A little over four years ago, under the watch of Erik ten Hag, an ambitious and resourceful coach, the club came within a goal from Tottenham Hotspur’s Lucas Moura, six minutes into stoppage time, of reaching a Champions League final.

But for Moura winning a see-saw semi-final, on away goals, in Amsterdam, Ajax would have become the only club from outside Europe’s so-called Big Five leagues – England’s Premier League, Spain’s Liga, the German Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, and France’s Ligue 1 – in 15 years to have reached a European Cup final.

Ten Hag is now at Manchester United, along with Andre Onana, the goalkeeper from that 2018-19 season. Matthijs De Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui are at Bayern Munich and Frenkie de Jong at Barcelona.

But the Ajax model had been built to weather that inevitable drift, where players, expertly scouted or raised from childhood through the club’s respected academy, move on young to grander leagues. The next generation would usually supply talent in abundance and if the turnover in the first-team squad sometimes seemed high, there was continuity in the government of the club.

Across the period in which Ajax reached a Europa League final, in 2017, came within a breath of a Champions League final and won three out of four completed Dutch Eredivisie titles, Marc Overmars and Edwin van der Sar had the roles of director of football and CEO, respectively. Both were part of the last Ajax team to win the Champions League, in 1995.

Overmars then lost his job after he was found to have sent inappropriate messages to female colleagues; Van der Sar suffered an incapacitating illness earlier this year.

When Ajax slumped to third position in last season’s Eredivisie, it marked a modern low – no Uefa Champions League invitation for the first time in 13 years. Mislintat arrived with a fine reputation for scouting talent from his work at Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal, among other clubs, but had come under scrutiny for a possible business conflict of interest around the signing of one of Ajax’s summer newcomers, the defender Borna Sosa.

Key players, as ever, had left, their haste sharpened because there is no Champions League football for Ajax in 2023-24. Jurrien Timber joined Arsenal, Mohammed Kudus and Edson Alvarez were sold to West Ham United. The gaps have not been adequately filled so far. Ajax sit 14th in the 18-club Eredivisie, having lost half their matches. They were heading to a another defeat, by a heavy margin, in Sunday’s Klassieker when events spiralled out of control.

No more lice

Defining head lice

Pediculus humanus capitis are tiny wingless insects that feed on blood from the human scalp. The adult head louse is up to 3mm long, has six legs, and is tan to greyish-white in colour. The female lives up to four weeks and, once mature, can lay up to 10 eggs per day. These tiny nits firmly attach to the base of the hair shaft, get incubated by body heat and hatch in eight days or so.

Identifying lice

Lice can be identified by itching or a tickling sensation of something moving within the hair. One can confirm that a person has lice by looking closely through the hair and scalp for nits, nymphs or lice. Head lice are most frequently located behind the ears and near the neckline.

Treating lice at home

Head lice must be treated as soon as they are spotted. Start by checking everyone in the family for them, then follow these steps. Remove and wash all clothing and bedding with hot water. Apply medicine according to the label instructions. If some live lice are still found eight to 12 hours after treatment, but are moving more slowly than before, do not re-treat. Comb dead and remaining live lice out of the hair using a fine-toothed comb.
After the initial treatment, check for, comb and remove nits and lice from hair every two to three days. Soak combs and brushes in hot water for 10 minutes.Vacuum the floor and furniture, particularly where the infested person sat or lay.

Courtesy Dr Vishal Rajmal Mehta, specialist paediatrics, RAK Hospital

F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Global Fungi Facts

• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil

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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

The biog

Name: Abeer Al Bah

Born: 1972

Husband: Emirati lawyer Salem Bin Sahoo, since 1992

Children: Soud, born 1993, lawyer; Obaid, born 1994, deceased; four other boys and one girl, three months old

Education: BA in Elementary Education, worked for five years in a Dubai school

 

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Gothia Cup 2025

4,872 matches 

1,942 teams

116 pitches

76 nations

26 UAE teams

15 Lebanese teams

2 Kuwaiti teams

2.0

Director: S Shankar

Producer: Lyca Productions; presented by Dharma Films

Cast: Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

MATCH INFO

World Cup qualifier

Thailand 2 (Dangda 26', Panya 51')

UAE 1 (Mabkhout 45 2')

Updated: September 25, 2023, 4:43 PM`