Menno Geelen does not recognise the picture of Jordi Cruyff as Ajax technical director largely pursuing his own course. The chief executive emphatically rejects that portrayal in an interview with De Telegraaf and instead describes Cruyff as a team player.
That was Geelen's indirect response to a damning article published by Het Parool at the start of July about Cruyff's way of working. The technical director was portrayed as a lone operator who had largely cut himself off from the existing organisation and mainly worked with his own confidants. Ten current and former club employees told the newspaper they had been sidelined.
Geelen says that does not match what he sees every day. “I do not recognise that portrayal,” he says. “Jordi is actually a team player. I have spoken to him myself virtually every day over the past few months, about all kinds of matters.”
He insists Cruyff works closely with various people within Ajax. “Jordi also consults a lot with our finance director Shashi Baboeram Panday. And he involves Daniel de Ridder and Siem de Jong, who are developing as technical managers.”
Cruyff is also said to be in frequent contact with the coaching staff and the supervisory board. “Jordi also bounces ideas around a lot with the coach, other people on the staff, and with the football commissioner,” Geelen says, distancing himself from the picture of Cruyff operating mainly on his own.
Those many new signings this summer also prompted comparisons with Sven Mislintat, who brought 12 players to Amsterdam as technical director in 2023, with almost all of them failing. Geelen does not accept the comparison. “The Mislintat period was extensively evaluated, including externally. One of the conclusions was that the football axis within the organisation was not in order. That has been addressed.”
Since then, Geelen says, the transfer process has changed too. “The entire transfer process was also reviewed and improved. During the Mislintat period I may have had a different responsibility as commercial director, but I still felt responsible.”