Ajax Youth & Amateurs

[SPL]

The full list of youths appear on the official site and your other name Hornkamp is listed with the D2 team which will be U12.

[acab]

I'm wondering, what is happaning with the Ajax Zaterdag (Amateurs)? Is this branch still exist? Icouldn'f find them in Hoofdklasse or Erste Klasse. Does someone knos? I was preaty sure, Ajax Zaterdag play in Hoofdklasse B

[SPL]

Ruben Ligeon , the A1 right back ,has been given a contract to June 2012 .

[SPL]

The A1 team have only just returned to training but this weekend finished 3rd in the Otten Cup in PSV.

They beat Spurs and Psv but lost to Anderlecht in the semi and then beat twente to finish 3rd .

10 of the 18 squad have just moved up from the B1 including Bouy . The only 2 who were regular A1 's last season were Ligeon and Koppers. Hahn and Boere the other 2 who will stay in the A1 again are injured .

[Amol]

We just gave a 2 year contract to an A1 player called Mitchell Dijks. From what I could find on the internet, he is a 17 year old LCB who is already 195 cm(!!!!) tall.

[Blind3]

You can't teach height , but you can contract it if it has promise.

[SPL]

He is another of last seasons B1 and a Dutch U17.Clearly a talented group.

[orange goblin]

a news that SPL will not refuse to comment, for sure. thieves are back in town!

http://www.ajaxshowtime.com/hoofdnieuws ... -utd-.html

[SPL]

I discovered via Google translate Ajax Netwerk site has a section on youth and they are very knowledgeable on their youth . I think Benji is also on this site.

They have been talking about this for a good month. If Man U have bought the parents to get the kid then this is yet another example of child theft and not just English clubs do it. FIFA should do something about it . Transfers abroad under 18 should be banned.

As for Van Velzen all I have gained from the above thread is that he is ok but the B1 team have a another left winger called Kishna, who is a year younger and is going to get a contract on his 16th birthday next year . So Man U appear to have stolen the second best left winger in the U17's.

If the kid was a real talent Ajax would have given him a contract but his parents have taken the money
and I doubt we will ever here his name again . He will probably drift along at Man u for 3or 4years and get sold to some non descript team .

[Orange14]

They have been talking about this for a good month. If Man U have bought the parents to get the kid then this is yet another example of child theft and not just English clubs do it. FIFA should do something about it . Transfers abroad under 18 should be banned.

It's probably another way to get around the new EPL rules on "homegrown" players. Is there any English team that has any ethics these days? I'm tempted to boycott watching EPL matches this season. At least with the Italian league, you know there is corruption!

[SE6Ajacied]

I'm tempted to boycott watching EPL matches this season. At least with the Italian league, you know there is corruption!

Oh no, don't do that - not this season.

Follow the tangerine army as we don't like the big money either http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 925912.stm

We've also got a very colourful (hmm) majority shareholder in Mr Owen Oyston (I can't be bothered to explain but Google will be happy to I'm sure.)

[Orange14]

I'm tempted to boycott watching EPL matches this season. At least with the Italian league, you know there is corruption!

Oh no, don't do that - not this season.

Follow the tangerine army as we don't like the big money either http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 925912.stm

We've also got a very colourful (hmm) majority shareholder in Mr Owen Oyston (I can't be bothered to explain but Google will be happy to I'm sure.)

Well I definitely will follow Blackpool since they don't appear to be engaged in child trafficking. I did read an article on Oyston and he is really something else. For all the other EPL teams, a pox on you stadiums!

[SPL]

Our kid is too old at 16 for Arsenal they have signed a 15 year old from Stuttgart.

I know we have signed kids and our Belgiums were all 15 /16 but Antwerp is not much more than 100 miles from Amsterdam and less than 2hours on a direct train does not really compare with bribing the parents with jobs and a house .Eriksen came here a few weeks before his 17th but his parents are still in Denmark and he could have earnt alot more money going to an EPL club.

UEFA wont do anything about it though as it has gone on for years . Ajax can give contracts at 16 as 6 members of our B1 were all given 3 year contracts last summer .

I assume Ajax got wind of this Man U move a while ago but the fact is if he were a real talent like Bouy they would have given him a contract back in April when he reached 16.

This is the first real youth we have lost to a big club in England . Brouwer was nearly 19 when Liverpool signed him in January 2007, we were not going to offer him more than 2years so as he was not a great talent we let him go. Before that Owusi Abeye joined Arsenal at 16 but we had kicked him out .I do not know anything about Van Velzen but I will bet he never makes it .

[Orange14]

I discovered via Google translate Ajax Netwerk site has a section on youth and they are very knowledgeable on their youth . I think Benji is also on this site.

They have been talking about this for a good month. If Man U have bought the parents to get the kid then this is yet another example of child theft and not just English clubs do it. FIFA should do something about it . Transfers abroad under 18 should be banned.

As for Van Velzen all I have gained from the above thread is that he is ok but the B1 team have a another left winger called Kishna, who is a year younger and is going to get a contract on his 16th birthday next year . So Man U appear to have stolen the second best left winger in the U17's.

If the kid was a real talent Ajax would have given him a contract but his parents have taken the money
and I doubt we will ever here his name again . He will probably drift along at Man u for 3or 4years and get sold to some non descript team .

More on this travesty can be found in today's Guardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010 ... van-velzen. We probably won't get any compensation.

[orange goblin]

Ajax is talking to Man Utd board to solve the problem (take the guy, but pay)

[Amol]

I discovered via Google translate Ajax Netwerk site has a section on youth and they are very knowledgeable on their youth . I think Benji is also on this site.

I discovered it this past month too. The folks are pretty knowledgeable about the youth squads there.

[paladinby]

We really can do nothing about it. If the boy had never been cotracted by us how can we get some compensation? It is time for UEFA and FIFA to change things but they are only protecting rich clubs/leagues.

[Amol]

How about this for size - if a player spends
1. 4 years at club A
2. 4 years at club B
3. 4 years at club C
during his development. Then all of them should get a certain percentage of his future transfer fees.

Another thing which could work IMO is - 10% (or whatever number ) of the players salary after a certain age(lets say 21) , should be taxed and given to the clubs which trained him.

Imagine if Barcelona had stolen Messi from us when he was 15. Then if Barcelona never sold him, we would never get a part of the transfer fees. But, lets assume he gets paid 10 million a year, then we would get at least a part of that each year for training him.

Just a thought.

[Cedric]

According to this document, page 23: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affeder ... lt2010.pdf

Training compensation shall be paid to a player’s training club(s): (1) when a player signs his first contract as a professional and (2) each time a professional is transferred until the end of the season of his 23rd birthday.

So Manchester will probably have to pay, right?
But this should be a ridiculous amount, such as 10 000€ x the number of years he was at Ajax between his 12th and 15th birthday + 90 000€ for his last year as I guess he was over 15.

[SPL]

He was only here for 3 years .Thats 110000 I think .

Glad I am not the only non Dutchie who reads the Ajax netwerk site . Those guys really know their youth .Some of them go down and watch them. If anyone on here goes on that site thank the guys for their knowledge.

[Rooie]

Ajax received something between 300 and 400k euro's for the transfer of Brouwer to Liverpool. He played 3,5 years in our youth. Van Velzen played here for 3 years. Should be something like that.

[Monkey Tonk]

Just ridiculous to go after players that age. What's the point of even having a youth academy if classless outfits like Manchester United are ready to target anyone without a contract? F*ck United!

http://www.breakingfootballnews.com/eng ... elzen/7366

[SPL]

At least the A1 have started well . They beat FWord 2-1 last Saturday in the Supercup and today won their 1st league game 4-0 v Heerenveen.

Plenty of them look like playing at Dutch u 19 level . The squad for 2 xU 19 games in the next week
contains Ligeon, Koppers,Boere,Veltman , Lukoki,de Kamps , all aged 18 this year and second year A youths plus 2 aged 17 first year A youths in Klassen and of course Bouy. The goalie Hahn would have been in the squad be he is currently injured.

[Kowalczyk]

There's an article on Ajax.nl about the Ajax Saturday amateurs. It's available in Dutch only (click HERE), and I don't feel like translating the whole thing, but I will translate the key paragraph. Bottom line is: the place of the Ajax Saturday amateurs in the Ajax organisation is to become a more important one.

"The Ajax Saturday team must become more of a 'development team' in the upcoming years. Therefore, promotion to the Hoofdklasse and, after that, the new Topklasse of Dutch amateur football is regarded as a must. "There is ambition," says the team's head-coach, Constantijn Schouten. "Young players who only just fail to make the jump from De Toekomst to the ArenA can join the Saturday team and continue to develop. We want to go places with the Saturday team. Our goal is to return to the Hoofdklasse this season, and it would be great if talented young players can develop in the Topklasse in the near future." In order to achieve that goal, Ajax recently started to pay the Saturday amateurs for their services: 'modest compensation', in the words of Schouten.

Some background information...

For many decades professional football and amateur football were totally separated in The Netherlands. The champions of the Hoofdklasse amateur level could not go up; the bottom teams from the (professional) First Division could not go down. As a result of that, a handful of the country's major amateur clubs (IJsselmeervogels, Spakenburg, Quick Boys, Katwijk, ADO '20 and De Treffers, to name but a few) were in many ways bigger clubs than some of the smaller First Division sides: more season ticket holders, higher attendances, better accommodation, bigger budgets and they actually payed their players, too (not officially, but in indirect ways, for example by paying for their mortgages and cars and finding them well-paid dayjobs, etc.).

The newly established Topklasse ('Top Class', although Hoofdklasse also means 'Top Class', so let's use the Dutch names from now on) marks the end of the old system: we now have a promotion/relegation system that connects the professional and amateur levels. From now on the bottom team from the First Division will drop out of professional football and go down to the Topklasse, whereas there's a fairly complicated promotion system from Topklasse to First Division (basically, Topklasse champions don't have to go professional if they don't want to).

The Ajax Saturday amateurs played in the Hoofdklasse for a number of years (they went down to First Class a couple of years ago) and they were a remarkable Hoofdklasse side: the players did not get paid. That was a surprise to many people: the amateurs of the big rich AFC Ajax were the only real amateurs in the league, which made it quite achievement that they lasted in the Hoofdklasse for so long.

This has now changed: from now on Ajax will (modestly) pay their Saturday amateurs and, on a technical/player development level, the distance between the ArenA and the Saturday amateurs has become smaller. Which I believe is a good thing. Sometimes, players who came through the ranks at De Toekomst fail to make it in the first team: soon they will be too old for Young Ajax and then there is only one option, namely to let them go (in most cases for free).

Now, if a player really is determined to make it at Ajax, he can stay at the club, play for the Saturday amateurs - and give it another shot. Makes sense to me, but this will only work if the Saturday team play on a high level: Hoofdklasse or Topklasse.

K.

[SE6Ajacied]

Cheers Ko-interesting read that-a shame really that only AFC of the other Amsterdam sides have made the Topklasse-would be good to see Blauw Wit or DWS etc there as well