After seven months, Carolien Gehrels resigns as chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ajax

After seven months, Carolien Gehrels resigns her position as a member and chairman of the Supervisory Board (RVC) of Ajax. The club announced this on Thursday in one press release. According to Gehrels (57), the role at Ajax can no longer be combined with its directorship at the advisory and engineering company Arcadis.

Gehrels joined in February 2025 after an extensive search in which Ajax approached a total of more than 270 candidates. Her term officially ran up to and including 2028. For her appointment, Gehrels was alderman and deputy mayor of Amsterdam, and later sports alderman.

The departure of Gehrels comes three days after Hermine Voûte also announced that he wants to leave Ajax’s Supervisory Board. At the beginning of September, Danny Blind also said he wanted to leave the council.

Administrative unrest

Gehrel’s predecessors openly argued last year with the Board Council, a seven -headed body that represents the ‘amateur association Ajax’, the largest shareholder of the listed club. That association has 73 percent of the shares.

Among other things, the Administrative Board started a media offensive to get rid of three at the time of the then supervisory directors because they would have failed to supervise the former Football Affairs Director Sven failed. The German bought more than 100 million from players who were disappointing. After four months he was already fired. Later an external investigation into alleged conflicts of interest from Geldintat, for which no evidence was found.

The powerful amateur association also put successful pressure on the then commissioners not to dismiss Alex Kroes. Just before his formal appointment, the newly taken director bought more than 17,000 Ajax shares. Trading with prior knowledge, critics thought. Although Kroes resigned as general director and chairman of the board, remained at the club as a technical director.

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