Ajax’s financial director Susan Lenderink has become the latest administrator to face an uncertain future at the crisis-hit football club over her handling of the dismissal of former director of football Sven Mislintat.

The shareholders’ association VEB accused Lenderink of misleading its members when she reassured them in November that all player transfers were vetted by the club’s supervisory board.

Mislintat was sacked in September after Ajax ordered an inquiry into his relationship with an agent who brokered the transfer of Croatian defender Borna Sosa.

The investigation by KPMG concluded that there had been no conflict of interest on Mislintat’s part, but criticised the club for giving him a free rein to buy and sell players.

Mislintat bought 12 players during the summer transfer window for a total outlay of more than €100 million, while key members of the squad, such as striker Dusan Tadic, midfielder Mohammed Kudus and Dutch international defender Jurriën Timber, were sold.

Sixth in league

The 36-times Eredivisie champions are currently languishing in sixth place in the league, 33 points behind leaders PSV, having been hammered 6-0 at the weekend by arch-rivals Feyenoord – Ajax’s heaviest ever defeat in the Klassieker.

“Mislintat’s working methods do raise a number of questions, but there are no grounds for claiming liability,” the report said.

Gerben Everts, chair of the VEB, said Lenderink’s claims that the supervisory board scrutinised all player transfers had been exposed as worthless.

“If you say that the conditions have been properly applied and 15 people reviewed every decision, and KMPG now say that’s absolute rubbish, you’ve got some explaining to do,” he told RTL Nieuws.

CEO suspended

Lenderink could come under pressure to stand down at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in Amsterdam on May 21, which was originally called to discus the proposed sacking of CEO Alex Kroes.

Kroes was suspended at the start of April over revelations that he bought 17,500 shares in the club a week before his appointment was made public last August.

The 49-year-old had only started work in mid-March after sitting out a non-competition clause with his previous club, AZ Alkmaar. Independent legal advice commissioned by Ajax concluded that he “likely engaged in insider trading”.

Kroes has remained defiant, claiming he bought the shares to show he had confidence in the club’s future, but the supervisory board are expected to seek his dismissal at the shareholders’ gathering.

The divisions deepened when 131 members of the club – just under 20% of the total membership – signed a letter demanding an apology from board chairman Michael van Praag for the “character assassination” of Kroes in the media.

No Potter magic

The signatories, including several former players, said Van Praag, who called Kroes “stupid and naïve”, should have kept his counsel pending a ruling from the financial markets regulator AFM. “Alex is innocent until proven otherwise,” they wrote.

Ajax have also suffered a setback in their search for a new first-team manager to replace Maurice Steijn, who left the club in September after taking the team to the bottom of the league, having been appointed in June.

Sky Sports reported that former Chelsea manager Graham Potter had turned down an offer to take over at the Johan Cruyff Arena from next season, although AD.nl said the 48-year-old, one of Kroes’s top picks for the role, had not completely shut the door.

Steijn fell out with Mislintat, partly over the German’s total control of transfer policy, and left shortly after Ajax lost 4-0 at home to Feyenoord in a match that was suspended because of crowd violence. The last 35 minutes were played behind closed doors and Ajax were fined €25,000 by the Dutch football association KNVB.