What is going on with Ajax?

‘It can thaw, it can freeze, we can win or lose… But there is no better club than this one.’ A text I have often shouted out loud, but lately it has mostly been freezing and we are really losing hard. Where you could once proudly say you were an Ajax fan, it has become mostly frustrating lately. They are — understatement — not playing well at all, and behind the scenes, it’s a mess. So much so that technical director Sven Mislintat was fired yesterday with immediate effect.

A telling detail: first, a press release was sent out by Ajax stating that his dismissal had gone ‘in good consultation’... A few minutes later, a new, corrected press release came out, in which there was nothing more to read about that good consultation. There’s a good chance that things got quite heated behind the scenes at Ajax, and understandably so.

In front of the cameras, in the ArenA, things also got quite heated. Fireworks on the field caused the match against Feyenoord to be stopped at 3 – 0. Yep, we were three goals down against Feyenoord in our home base. As you can read, I am an Ajax fan and saying that it is painful is a very mild way to express what was going on yesterday.

Back to Mislintat: who is this German man who was working behind the scenes at Ajax? Last Wednesday, it was also announced that an investigation would be conducted into him (an investigation that is unrelated to his dismissal last night) due to the transfer of Borna Sosa.

This left-back from Croatia was purchased by Ajax through a German observation office. After investigation by the NOS it turned out that this company again had shares in the hands of a private company of Mislintat. A classic case of conflict of interest… And not very classy.

Before this, Mislintat worked as the chief scout for Dortmund and Arsenal, which are certainly not the least clubs, but I don’t think he understood for a second what he was supposed to do at Ajax. Maybe throw money around? That is actually the only thing he has done successfully: since his appointment in May, he has squandered 110 euros on ‘talents’. I probably don’t need to tell you, but looking at the past dramatic period, those have not been the best purchases…

The result now is that there are very mediocre footballers in the team, most of whom have a five-year contract, so we are not getting rid of them anytime soon. I fear that Ajax's losing streak is far from over…