Alex Kroes is currently the center of attention at Ajax, but it could well be that the focus will return to Sven Mislintat in the short term. Michael van Praag, chairman of the Supervisory Board, announced on Tuesday that the KPMG investigation into a possible conflict of interest by the German has been completed. The press release about this will have to wait a while, but according to Chris Woerts there is ‘actually nothing’ in the results of the research.
Woerts joined us on Tuesday evening Today Inside to shed light on, among other things, the suspension and impending departure of Kroes from Ajax. The brand new general manager has been suspended with immediate effect because he is said to have acted with insider information by purchasing 17,000 Ajax shares a week before the publication of his intended appointment. Kroes himself does not simply accept this decision, but Van Praag has already definitively closed the door for him. However, Woerts believes that not only Kroes, but also Van Praag and his fellow commissioners should look in the mirror.
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“The Supervisory Board has acted very carelessly here. They could also have asked eight months ago: dude, give me the spreadsheet with all that data. Instead, they let it build on”, that was what Woerts said. However, according to the businessman and director of CWO Consultancy & Marketing, there was more going on between Woerts and the commissioners. This reportedly cannot be seen separately from the investigation into Mislintat. The German started his position as director of football affairs at Ajax last May, but was dismissed again on September 24. Not long before, the NOS an outside investigation showed that Mislintat had brought the Croatian defender Borna Sosa to Amsterdam through a business relationship.
Ajax then decided to engage the accounting and consultancy firm KPMG for an investigation into possible conflicts of interest by Mislintat. All incoming transfers completed by Mislintat were taken into account. “Kroes is mentally independent and financially independent. That KPMG report will be released soon. There’s actually nothing in there, very lifeless”says Woerts, according to whom no new sanctions will be imposed. “And Kroes has said that he does not agree in advance with the results of that report. So he has taken a very independent stance. He concentrated very hard during those two weeks – they were two fantastic weeks – and saw a number of bodies come out of the closet. But he said: hey, hey, commissioners. I’m going to solve this differently. So there was actually already friction.”
It is unclear exactly when the results of the KPMG investigation into Mislintat will be shared with the outside world. Van Praag was asked by the NOS know that the press release is already there, but that it has ‘now been overshadowed by what is happening here’, referring to the situation with Kroes.
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