Why the Ajax board determines the fate of suspended director Kroes | Football

After the painful draw (2-2) with Excelsior, the power struggle at Ajax will flare up again when the supervisory board has to explain the suspension of director Alex Kroes due to insider trading in shares to the board of directors. It will be a knife-to-the-throat explanation for chairman Michael van Praag on Thursday evening, because the board of directors has already asked the supervisory board to reconsider the decision.

It is not the first time that various parties at Ajax have come to blows, but this public struggle does take on a symbolic character on the birthday of club icon Johan Cruijff. Even during the ‘Velvet Revolution’ unleashed by Cruijff in 2010, Ajax as a listed company proved to be a many-headed monster.

The spirit of Cruijff, who died in 2016, will always hang over Ajax. Even now that the ArenA bears his name, the battle between the various camps is mainly a clash between emotion and reason. But who has the final say at Ajax? And why does the board of directors play such a prominent role?

Before Ajax moved to the ArenA in 1996 and was listed on the stock exchange two years later, the record champion was an association with 24 people in a membership council that elected the board. The board led the club, Van Praag was the prominent chairman between 1989 and 2003.

Since Ajax has been managed as a listed company, the board of directors is the most powerful body within the club. Initially, the board would exercise restraint in order not to get in the way of the management. The management runs NV Ajax, which includes professional football. The board represents the members of AFC Ajax, who own 73 percent of the shares.

The nine-member board of directors, elected by almost a thousand members, appoints and can dismiss the supervisory board at the general shareholders’ meeting. In that sense, Kroes’ fate lies indirectly in the hands of the board of directors, while supervisory board chairman Van Praag wants to explain to the same board of directors on Thursday evening why the director at Ajax should be fired.

After all, the supervisory board appoints and dismisses the management, which has now once again created a vacancy for a general manager. Kroes had only been employed for two weeks when he was temporarily removed from his position by the supervisory board. Kroes had expanded his share package again on July 23 with 17,500 shares, even though he was almost certain that day that he would become a director at Ajax.

According to the rules of the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), Koers therefore had price-sensitive information. And insider trading in shares is a criminal offence. During a press interview, Van Praag called Kroes’ actions “stupid and naive”. He added that according to the supervisory board, Kroes would not be able to return to Ajax in any other position. Many members at Ajax think differently about this.

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Suddenly sentiment at the club changed. Under pressure from their supporters, three commissioners decided to keep the honor to themselves. They were associated with a turbulent summer, when the expelled technical Sven Mislintat was allowed to freely put together a mediocre selection.

The current supervisory board of Ajax now consists of three leading members: chairman Van Praag, former captain and coach Danny Blind and former KLM CEO Leo van Wijk. The irony is that the current board of directors, led by former ABN AMRO manager Ernst Boekhorst, was nominated by honorary members such as Van Praag and Van Wijk.

Now the chairmen of the supervisory board and the board of directors are diametrically opposed to each other. In addition, some members of the board are in the same Ajax amateur team as the inactive Kroes. In this conflict, all kinds of interests are intertwined.

In the background you can hear the cry of the F-side, the hard core among the supporters who also openly supported Kroes on Wednesday evening during the match against Excelsior. Indirectly, the emotions at a football club clash with the morals of a listed company.

The suspended director has become the face of the division within Ajax. Kroes was already praised as the savior at his appointment. The former youth player would take his great love back to the top after a disastrous season. That emotion now predominates, 85-year-old ‘Mister Ajax’ Sjaak Swart spoke of a “mistake” by Van Praag to suspend Kroes.

Kroes’s possible criminal actions have not been discussed for a long time, his intentions are said to have been pure. Van Praag is now being criticized as the ‘plush stickler’ who is only out for his own gain. For the time being, Van Praag is sticking to his guns, he says he wants to remove “an information backlog” from the administrative council.

However, Van Praag must fear that the members will listen to him without wanting to hear his message. A special shareholders’ meeting will take place at Ajax on May 21, which appears to result in a head-on crash between the board of directors and the supervisory board, which Kroes then wants to nominate for dismissal.

Van Praag has the law in hand and feels strengthened by the investigation by NautaDutilh lawyers into Kroes’ share purchase. But he knows better than anyone that the football world is often ruled by opportunism. And then emotions can win over ethics and morality.

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