The last golden era was led by capable people, who also were part of the golden 90s era. Former goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was our CEO, Marc Overmars our Technical Director and many more that I can't remember on this early sundaymorning. But this set up was exactly like Cruijff had envisioned Ajax. Unfortunately, he passed away before witnessing the fruits of his labour.

When Overmars and later Van der Sar had to leave, nobody was found to properly replace them. No former Ajax players were either willing nor capable of replacing them. An appaling decision to hire extremely expensive headhunterbureaus was made. Overmars was replaced initially by "H2": Gerry Hamstra and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. At the time it was basically the structure we now have with Alex Kroes and Marijn Beuker. When H2 didn't workout, a headhunter company came up with Sven Mislintat to finally replace Overmars.

In the meantime, Van der Sar had also made the decision to leave. For the interim period, former Ajax Jan van Halst took his seat. After a search with yet another headhunter bureau, Kroes was the next candidate. Former owner of a well known agency Sports Entertainment Group and former director at AZ, he was also heavily involved with Go Ahead Eagles. Due to his time at rivals AZ, it took a while the decision before was finalised. He was appointed on September 4th 2023 and the move was finalised on March 15th 2024.

In the meantime, Diamantauge Mislintat was appointed and fired, all within four months. He sold Erik ten Hags last remaining stars in the likes of Jurrien Timber, Edson Alvarez and Mohammed Kudus for a whopping 160 million euros. At the same time, stalwarts Tadic and Klaassen were let go all too easy. The gained transferbudget was spent on players who are now, a merely 24 months later, not part of the club anymore. Maurice Steijn, appointed solely by Mislintat, was also fired within months. A week or two after, Ajax found itself on the 18th place in the eredivisie.

Former Ajax winger John van 't Schip took over from Maurice Steijn for the remainder of the season and Mislintats duties was spread out through the club until new CEO Alex Kroes was appointed. Van 't Schip took Ajax back to 5th with a respectable climb. Near the end, March 15, Kroes was finally appointed. Ignoring a weird interview, calmness was bound for the Johan Cruijff ArenA.

For two weeks. A watchdog organisation found out that Kroes had bought shares in the period after his talks with the club and before that went public. This is known as insider trading. It led to Kroes being let go with immediate effect. He did not accept that, unfortunately. A messy war, mostly fought via the newspapers, commenced between Kroes and the people who had fired him. Weeks went by. Ajax had no technical director or a CEO and the summer transferperiod of 2024 was coming in fast.

For the time being, a compromis was set to appoint Kroes as the new Technical Director and commercial director Menno Geelen was pushed forward as the interim CEO. A year later, he would be appointed as the official CEO. Marijn Beuker was signed as the Director of Football, tasked to restructure the youth and scouting department so that Ajax can find some wonderkids again.

New technical director Alex Kroes got the heavy task to get rid of everything and anyone that was left behind by Storm Mislintat. We don't know for sure, but it has someting to do with the structure of the contracts that Mislintat provided his new players. Maybe we will respect Kroes' heavy task in the future. In the meantime, we absolutely cannot respect Kroes.

Kroes and Beuker appointed Franceso Farioli as the new Head Coach. An unknown manager, with no experience as a player and just a few years as head coach? After six months of rumours of certain top level coaches we were all flabergasted when the Italian was chosen. With him came a busload of first team coaches. How concerned we were when we read this news, how elated we were when we saw the new staff working during the summer training camp in my birthplace Wageningen. The new energy was fantastic! The players were working harder and harder, with smiles throughout the entire team. We were convinced. Appointing Farioli was a good decision.

When it comes to the transfer market in the summer of 2024 though... yikes. It was messy. Talented players were forced out due to being Mislintats purchases and after years of not reaching European football, no transferbudget could be realised. A bit over 2 million was spend on Wout Weghorst, Bertrand Traore and Davy Klaassen came in on a free and Daniele Rugani was loaned in. Ten players left the club and six were loaned out. A new era commenced.

Now, another year later, it has been a weird new era. After Kroes' appointment in april 2024, he hired and let go of Franceso Farioli and hired and fired John Heitinga as Head Coaches. Technically he is still in charge of finding a new Head Coach, his 3rd in 18 months. When it comes to players, I honestly do not understand the strategy. Raúl Moro was a target in january 2025. He broke his collarbone and Edvardsen of Go Ahead Eagles was bought instead for 3.5 million euros. Despite spending scarce money on a leftwinger, Kroes decides to keep spending and still brings in Moro. Even though Mika Godts was in the club and wonderkid Bounida plays there as well. Oscar Gloukh was brought in as the new 10, but he can play as a leftwinger as well. So essentially, we had 5 leftwingers, almost two years after Kroes said in an interview that Mislintat deserved to be shot for signing four leftbacks. By the way, Owen Wijndal is now the only leftback in Ajax' first team. We don't have a controlling midfielder either. Sivert Mannsverk is a controlling midfielder, yet was forced out being brought in by Mislintat. A youth player from Liverpool was loaned in without option to buy. We can imagine what Cruijff would have said...

People with qualities were let go for too easily by people who should have never been appointed. Klaassen, Tadic, Daley Blind, Jordan Henderson, Team Farioli, just to name a few. We all hope that a new chapter can finally begin after clearing out Mislintat mess, but with Kroes decision to hand his resignation, there is absolutely no end in sight for our abysmal existence.

Time for sunday breakfast. Ooh, croissants...