NOS Football•today, 5:59 PM
Only two weeks after Alex Kroes started as director of Ajax, the club sent him away again. According to the supervisory board (SB) of the Amsterdam football club, he acted with insider knowledge, something the supervisory body does not want to tolerate.
“If you buy shares and you know that you will become a director of a listed company, while others do not know that, then you are trading with insider information. That is a crime,” says Supervisory Board chairman Michael van Praag.
Kroes bought Ajax shares “in bits and pieces”, up to a total of 42,500 shares. He purchased more than 17,000 shares (worth 190,000 euros) shortly before his appointment on August 2, 2023. Kroes denies that he purchased the Ajax shares for profit.
Kroes said: ‘I don’t know the rules’
About ten days ago, the supervisory board received the first signals that Kroes had made a mistake. This happened after questions from the business magazine Quote. Ajax then started investigating.
“Quote then thought that we had paid for those shares, but that was not the case. We then entered into discussions with Kroes and he then sent us an Excel sheet with the purchase dates of his shares. The date of July 26 stood out.”
Watch the full interview with Michael van Praag here:
Watch the entire interview with Michael van Praag about Alex Kroes here
On July 26, Kroes already knew that he would become director of Ajax. He said earlier today that he bought the shares to project confidence in the club and to shareholders.
According to Van Praag, Kroes indicated in a conversation with the supervisory board last Friday that he thought he could get away with his actions. “He said it wasn’t all that bad and that he didn’t know the rules. But if you are so active on the stock exchange and you become CEO of a listed company… Every Dutch person should know the law, insider trading is a crime.”
‘Suspension only solution’
The 50-year-old Kroes has now been suspended by Ajax, but a permanent departure is inevitable. Irreversible, as Van Praag himself says. Kroes does not accept the decision and will submit his controversial purchase of Ajax shares to the stock market watchdog AFM. He also says that the supervisory board already knew about his shares.
“He now puts the blame on the supervisory board, which is a bit easy. But we did not trade with insider information, he does that. The supervisory board knew that he had 42,5,000 shares, but we did not know that he had just bought them. He didn’t say when he bought them and no, we didn’t ask that either.”
Have we been naive? I don’t know, but with a new CEO we will do that in a completely different way.”
Van Praag understands that it can seem clumsy that the supervisory board did not know that. “We should have known it too, but you also trust people. Whether we were naive? I don’t know, but with a new CEO we will do that in a completely different way.”
Because the search for a new director is about to begin. “We are now taking a measure that is the only solution. You cannot have a director who is suspected of insider trading. We have looked at other options, for example issuing a fine, but that cannot be explained.
Although Van Praag calls the decision necessary, it does hurt the chairman of the supervisory board, he says. “It’s a heartbreaking decision. Because you’re talking about someone you like and who has made a fantastic impression.”
The departure has nothing to do with Kroes’ working methods in recent weeks, he emphasizes. “Nothing has happened anymore. It is actually good that someone comes to Ajax to shake up the cushions. You wouldn’t hope in your wildest dreams that this would happen now.”
Ajax is now without a general manager, technical director and a head coach for next season. The search for those people continues, even without Kroes, reports Van Praag, who will support the management as delegated commissioner. “Don’t think we’re just sitting around here.”
Louis van Gaal will in any case not temporarily become the new general manager, Van Praag reports. “He is in Portugal and does not plan to come to the Netherlands. But he does have daily contact with football director Marijn Beuker.”
Who is Alex Kroes?
The 50-year-old Kroes, financially independent, became the largest real estate agency in the Netherlands as co-owner of Sports Entertainment Group (SEG).
In 2018 he sold his shares and took over the Go Ahead Eagles football club. When Kroes came into the picture as the successor to the dismissed director of football affairs Marc Overmars at Ajax, he was bought out by the club from Deventer. After a detour via AZ, he succeeded Edwin van der Sar as general manager of the club from the capital. Due to a non-competition clause with AZ, he could only start at Ajax on March 15.
