Ajax follows Johan Cruijff’s philosophy and starts training program for former players, first class known | Dutch football

It is entirely in accordance with Johan Cruiff’s philosophy to bind former players to the club and commercial director Menno Geelen is therefore pleased with the programme. “Management, Supervisory Board and our supporters: we all think it is important that former Ajax players are walking around at the club,” he says on the site.

The first quartet to start the process consists of Siem de Jong, Daniël de Ridder, Ricardo van Rhijn and Kelly Zeeman. Former captain De Jong is looking forward to the start of the program. “I have been following with great interest what Ajax is doing outside the field for some time now. I would like to contribute to that. There are many people at the club with a broad educational background and impressive experience, I can learn a lot from that.”

,,These former players want to develop further off the field. We want to help them on their way and at the same time we can learn a lot from them. The experiences of a top athlete are unique. I myself have noticed how nice it has been to work with Edwin van der Sar”, says Geelen about the former general manager.

De Jong played a total of 277 for Ajax, in which he scored 88 times and gave 52 assists. De Ridder came to 35 duels in red and white between 2003 and 2005. Van Rhijn played for Ajax 163 times and Zeeman played a total of 119 times for the women’s team of the team from Amsterdam between 2013 and 2022.