Fourteen months after the departure of Marc Overmars, Ajax has a new director of football affairs. The Amsterdam club reached an agreement on Monday afternoon about the German Sven Mislintat, reports said The Telegraph and Football International. The German was previously a scout at Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal, among others. According to The Telegraph Mislintat signs a contract for at least three years and will be presented by Ajax on Tuesday.
The 50-year-old Mislintat was particularly successful in his period at Borussia Dortmund, where he worked from 2006 to 2017. As the club’s chief scout, he was responsible for signing players such as Robert Lewandowski, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembélé. The last two players left for a total of about 160 million euros. Mislintat’s scouting work also contributed to the national titles won in 2011 and 2012.
His spell at Arsenal, on the other hand, was disappointing. Players scouted by him performed moderately and the club suffered large losses, partly because of this. In recent years, Mislintat has worked at the German VfB Stuttgart, but he left there last November.
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Search for successor
After Overmars’ departure due to sexually transgressive behavior, Gerry Hamstra and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar filled the position of director of football affairs on an interim basis. In the meantime, Ajax was looking for a successor. The Briton Julian Ward, technical director at Liverpool, was in the picture for a long time, but refrained from the position himself.
What didn’t help in the search was that Ajax didn’t have a technical affairs commissioner after the departure of Danny Blind. That position has now been filled again with the arrival of Jan van Halst. Van Halst, who played football for Ajax between 1999 and 2002, worked as a commercial and technical director at FC Twente after his football career.
With the arrival of Mislintat and Van Halst, Ajax hopes to end a turbulent period in the administrative field. Last summer, the club hired Milos Malenovic, the agent of Ajax captain Dusan Tadic, as an advisor to support the club with transfers. The management of Ajax did not always have insight into personal financial agreements that he made with transfers. In addition, a large number of (expensive) purchases are disappointing this season, including Jorge Sánchez, Calvin Bassey, Owen Wijndal and Lucas Ocampos, who have already left.
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