i read late last year that an internal commision was being set up to report to the commitee on the state of the team affairs and youth development program and make recommendations.

Has anything come of this yet, or are they still writing up the report?

My conclusion would be that there are too many fucking commissions.

A bunch of 'old boys' telling another bunch of 'old boys' they're doing fine.

Or... the commission could determine that quite a few things are wrong and offer concise, practical solutions... which will promptly be spun away and ignored.

Monday = D-Day.

That's when they will present their report.

K.

Looking forward to see what comes from it. Call me cynical, but like other things that are supposed to provide answers, I don't think we'll get many, but instead get excuses. At least it seems to be the first step in moving forward.

According to newspaper Algemeen Dagblad Ajax will also be adviced to buy up their own stock and withdraw from the stock exchange to revert to the traditional club structure.

The fans will love that one, and it sounds great, but I really wonder how a bunch of Ajax people including Stanley Menzo can say something about complicated economic stuff like that... Are they just saying what the supporters want to hear?

K.

What's Ajax's current market capitalisation?

Perhaps we should purposely keep fucking up, to let the stock price tumble. Then it will be cheaper to repurchase the shares. :D

Just found it... according to www.aex.nl, the Ajax market capitalisation is 137.5 million euros. It would be pretty damn expensive to buy back all those shares... So let's keep fucking up and get that share price down.

As far as i know Ajax still owns 86% of the shares.... still, 20 mil is alot..

This is where I got confused, because I knew that Ajax owned over 3/4 of the shares. However, market capitalisation usually refers to the publically issued shares only, yet the AEX has their Mkt-Cap at 137.5 million. But that would put the total value of the club at 987 million, if your 86% figure is correct. There's no way Ajax is worth nearly a billion euros.. surely...??

So maybe the 137.5 million listed at the AEX refers to the value of all the shares, both issued and in posession of Ajax. 20 million to buy back full ownership of the club is a steal, if you ask me. The Ajax share price is at a low at the moment, so now would be a good time to do it. Basically Ajax would be buying back the shares for less than they were sold for back in the 90s. That's good business. Better to do it now before the share price goes up again, before you know it you're paying 50 million to buy back the club, and that's just too much.

VI : "Directeur Fontein per direct weg bij Ajax"

Has the real mess already begun ?

Yup. Seems like it's kicked off at the ArenA...

According to press reports the Counsil of Comissioners has officially asked Fontein and Van Geel to resign. Also, Highlow.nl reports that the Board of Members will come together for an 'emergency meeting' tomorrow afternoon.

As for the new general director: the name of former general director Arie van Eijden is mentioned.

According to reports it would cost Ajax 37 million euros to buy all their stock back and withdraw from the stock exchange.

K.

No, that is the minimum it will cost, since that's what all the shares of other parties combined are worth at the moment.
Most people bought the shares when they were worth more however, and they'll probably want to see more cash before they're willing to sell them (they are obviously not obligated to sell them just because Ajax offer the current market value).
I'm very curious about the arguments the commission puts forward in support of throwing this much money away.

A great day for Ajax. Now it will be Jaakke's turn. Time to take a fresh start.

This was exactly what I was afraid of. The Committee was supposed to analyze what is going structurally wrong at Ajax en then make recommendations on how to improve it.
Instead all they come up with is that the management has to go (as if they are responsible for the whole decade of shit at Ajax) and some sentimental crap about leaving the stock exchange.

The only result will be the one we see pretty much every year: a couple of people are replaced by others who will themselves be replaced soon thereafter when it turns out we are still in a crisis.
The incompetence throughout the club is hopeless...

Arthur is right, to buy back all the shares you would have to offer way over the market value. However, you could buy back quite a large percentage of them for the market value. Not all the shares have to be bought back at once, maybe 5% could be bought back this year, another couple of percent the year after that, etc. Then the shareholders have less influence over the club.

I can see the argument for withdrawing from the stock exchange. A football club isn't suited to the stock exchange. Shareholders want to see continual growth in profits, quarter after quarter after quarter. A football club isn't a growing entity, like Microsoft or Google. It has a set number of bums on seats in the stadium, set number of matches per year, set number of jerseys sold... and a set turnover. There's no scope for year on year quarterly growth. So the only way to show big profit on the books every year, and to keep shareholders happy, is to sell off assets (e.g. players). Other clubs know this, so Ajax consistently gets less money than PSV for players, who can tell clubs that they aren't in a hurry to sell. If you are running a not for profit football club, then you need financial independence and that means no obligations to shareholders.

Perhaps Ajax could consider a membership system like Barcelona has.

you mean another fresh start that will lead again to nothing because nothing structural changes, only some superficial patch work is done to keep the fans quiet....

Ajax has been in a death spiral for some time. I have to believe this report is a serious attempt to escape it, instead of repeating the same pattern over and over. No way of telling beforehand how constructive and insightful the conclusions and recommendations of the committee will be, but clearly the problems facing Ajax were taken very seriously. That's a good thing.

Exactly. That's my feeling, too.

By the way: press conference today at 16:30 CET. Will be shown live on AT5.

According to the latest reports Maarten Fontein has been asked to resign, but he has refused. Martin van Geel, on the other hand, claims that he has not been asked to resign. We'll hear more about it at 16:30.

K.

While withdrawing from the stock market and sacking board members is one thing, a lot is to do with unrealistic expectations as well.

The supporters and the club want defenders and defensive midfielders who can perform a thousand keepy-uppies and nutmeg the other team on their way to solo goals. We need defenders who can defend. But there's a certain, mostly baseless, romantic image associated with Ajax that means we put the likes of Emanuelson and Van der Wiel in defense and don't really bother with a defensive midfield. What we need are hard bastards like Neeskens, but there are none coming out of the youth system, which seems only able to produce circus clowns. But I've been over this time and time again.

I wonder if the report had a look at the goals conceded column for Ajax and PSV over the past few seasons. There's a massive conclusion to be drawn from that alone.

expectations of being number 1 in Holland, and among the 16 best in Europe have nothing unrealistic

Well I've just finished reading the report and it's completely brutal, nobody is spared.

The irony is that this report will I suspect lead to the firing or resignation of pretty much everyone (except John Jakke), yet the report says there have been too many changes of personnel recently, and what we need is a period of stability.

Beware! The conclusions of this report have not immediate impact. The conclusion are an "advise", rather than a complete resign of the board.

they are only unrealistic when people expect it to be done with eleven ball juggling 18 year old wonderkids who are so good that they don't have to even bother defending, flying through the air using magic powers to levitate the ball into the net

that's unrealistic. but that's what some supporters seem to expect. success isn't good enough for them, nothing seems to be good enough (ask morten olsen).

look at psv, how many managers have they sacked in the last 10 years?