With the Ajax supervisory board all but gone – Chairman Steven ten Hage has vowed to serve the club until the last minute – wither Ajax?, asks AD. And are the board members going to be replaced by ‘a couple of garden gnomes’?

The discussion
How did it all begin? According to the AD, it wasn’t a power hungry Cruijff who started the ‘500 day war’ between him and the Ajax supervisory board. ‘In 2010 Cruijff and a number of fellow former players, Bergkamp, Jonk, Rijkaard, Van Basten and Keizer among them, came together to discuss the club’s disappointing results of the last 15 years. It was his love for the club that motivated Cruijff’, AD concludes with a catch in its voice.
The plan
The road to organised chaos, the road to success was the title of the plan of action the Cruijff camp produced. Former general director Rik van den Boog bristled at the plan which, he said, would mean staff would have to go: ‘people who have mortgages to pay’. The paper doubts however if Van den Boog, ‘a former director at Vodafone used to hiring and firing’, was really thinking of people’s financial predicaments. He stepped down in June last year.
The supervisory board
According to the paper, Cruijff realised that if he wanted the reforms of the youth training scheme at Ajax to go ahead he would need some clout: Ajax is a stock exchange listed club. The next step for Cruijff was a seat on the supervisory board sanctioned by the Ajax members association.
Cruijff should have known what he was getting into, some have suggested but, AD points out, Cruijff didn’t really know any of the four members, except Edgar Davids and he didn’t know him very well as it turned out.
The vacancy for a general directorship proved an insurmountable hurdle. Advisory board chairman Steven ten Have wanted Marco van Basten and maintains Cruijff stubbornly opposed the appointment. ‘We had the patience of saints with him, Ten Have said in the Volkskrant. on Friday.
The mistake
Ten Have claimed he didn’t want to stir things up when the club needs a time out to assess the damage but couldn’t resist. ‘Cruijff hardly ever came to our meetings. If you stay away twice you are suspended but if we had suspended Cruijff all hell would have broken loose’, he told the paper. According to Ten Have Cruijff mistakenly thought he had the right to decide singlehandedly who would become director. ‘That is not a decision that is just about football.’
‘Out of frustration’ the board then made the terrible mistake of going behind Cruijff’s back and appointing Louis van Gaal. Edgar Davids made the call. The wrath of Cruijff and the judge who deemed the appointment – and that of Sturkenboom and Blind who were to fill in until Van Gaal’s arrival – unacceptable descended on the board.
The aftermath
So has Cruijff won? AD asks. New members will have to be found to sit on the advisory board. They mustn’t be ‘garden gnomes’, Ten Have warned by which he presumably meant they mustn’t be puppets that will do whatever puppeteer Cruijff wants. Or maybe he did mean little bearded men with fishing rods. The anti Ten Have camp may say that it would be a question of spot the difference with the ex board chairman in the flexibility department. AD predicts Cruijff won’t have an easy ride because people like former board member Uri Coronel will exercise his influence behind the scenes. He still has plenty of enemies left.