Ajax worldwide (to be followed)

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » di nov 18, 2003 3:35 pm

AC Milan is opening a website in Japanese, and it is to be followed soon by Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese.
For Ajax, English would be nice to start with : why can’t we have a decent one for foreign supporters ?
Ajax Amsterdam is as known as AC Milan after all !

Milan AC: un site en japonais avant le chinois, l'espagnol et le portugais ( AFP) mar 18 nov, 15h09
Le Milan AC, vainqueur de la dernière Ligue des champions, est devenu mardi le premier club du Championnat d'Italie de football à avoir un site internet en japonais en attendant les versions chinoise, espagnole et portugaise

WP_Legend · Bericht door **WP_Legend** » di nov 18, 2003 5:52 pm

whats wrong with http://english.ajax.nl/ ???

666 · Bericht door **666** » di nov 18, 2003 8:10 pm

Today is November 18.
Breaking news on english.ajax.nl :
Amsterdam, November 12, 2003 Ajax have picked up the option in Jelle van Damme's contract...

'Tickets are only sold in combination with one of the above packages. Tickets only are not for sale'

dutch:
stadions: Het veldje, Amsterdam Noord, Het Houten Stadion, De Meer, Olympisch Stadion, Amsterdam Arena

english:
stadiums: The small pitch, Amsterdam North, The Wooden Stadium, De Meer, Olympic Stadium, (something's missing...)

etc.

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » wo nov 19, 2003 9:04 am

the English version is poor, seldom updated, and hard to find if you do not notice the tiny union jack on the top left of the screeen ...
but it does exist ;)

mr_cooper · Bericht door **mr_cooper** » wo nov 19, 2003 5:14 pm

it exist but you cant find anything there. compare the information in the dutch and english sections

Bericht door **ajaxusa** » di jan 13, 2004 10:27 pm

It's not the official site in English, but we're pretty proud of Ajax USA. Have you all checked it out? http://www.ajax-usa.com or http://www.ajaxusa.com both work...

Comments and suggestions ALWAYS welcome (if not always followed). :D

joey · Bericht door **joey** » di jan 13, 2004 10:56 pm

Yes, I checked it out, you have reason to be proud of your site. :xyxthumbs:

mr_cooper · Bericht door **mr_cooper** » wo jan 14, 2004 9:11 am

ye, you can proud in your site. but im looking for am english site that will give more news, daily news, about the club

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » wo jan 14, 2004 12:05 pm

Actually (this is Menno, editor of Ajax USA speaking, by the way) I dare say that we announce almost every relevant Ajax news fact, as long as it's confirmed, relevant and related to the actual game. We do not publish transfer rumors, or the fact that the club is 'talking' to a certain player. Once the transfer is a fact, or a player actually signs a new contract, we always have a news report - which credits a reliable, official source and is in almost all cases longer, more comprehensive and written in better English than the report on any other site.

We deliberately chose for that policy, as we want to be a reliable, serious and high-quality news source that doesn't publish the average Soccer365, TeamTalk or SoccerAge crap ('Trabelsi to join Man Utd this week', 'Bergkamp ready for Ajax return', et-fucking-cetera). Meanwhile, we have a news links section from which we link to unconfirmed stories in English. And: we post unconfirmed news in Dutch, plus Young Ajax news, to our discussion forum. So even the unconfirmed and unimportant stuff is actually there for you to read in English, except that we don't pollute our homepage and news archive with it.

The reason why we sometimes don't publish a new report on a daily basis is the simple fact that football, quite bluntly, may be not as interesting as we all think it is. There isn't always something interesting to say. That's why the average football paper or website is full of crap. They have sponsors and have to publish something every day. We don't. Ajax USA is a non-commercial, strictly independent site, totally free of advertising. If there's no news, we don't publish anything.

It is this policy that makes us (feel free to call me an arrogant bastard) the by far best and most reliable source for Ajax news in English - or any other language than Dutch. Moreover, several of our features (such as, for example, our profiles of all Eredivisie clubs) are unique. And we wrote all of our content ourselves. No simple copy-pasting; never the easy way. The only thing we simply translated directly are the Ajax-related chapters of Simon Kuper's book Ajax, de joden, Nederland, which we had available in English (with the author's exclusive permission) years before it was officially published in English as Ajax, the Dutch, the War.

Phew... This is the first time I couldn't keep myself from bragging about Ajax USA.

:X

K.

mr_cooper · Bericht door **mr_cooper** » wo jan 14, 2004 6:10 pm

first of all, your site is really good and it is the best site about ajax in english.
but, as a fan, i want to read all the crap also. i want to EVERETHING. so for my opinion, you need to put a topic that you can read there all the romurs about ajax, with the name of the site or paper that published it. like what you have on e-soccer.

Bericht door **ajaxusa** » do jan 15, 2004 7:29 am

You know, we used to have a "Transer Rumors and Gossip" thread in our discussions, and I'm not at all opposed to it. But there just wasn't much interest and so the thread died a quiet death. If there was more interest in it, somebody would keep such a discussion alive. Every once in a while, someone will post a rumor to the bboards, but it doesn't happen much.

Imagine how much worse it would be if Ajax was an Italian team: Headlines like 'Van der Vaart kisses his mother' or Litmanen: "I'm considering changing my socks" ' would appear as "real" news...

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » di jan 20, 2004 1:49 pm

Well, all right. Ajax-USA is the most informative website for non Dutch fans. :worshippy:
But that does not prevent the official Ajax site to do something better for foreigners, does it ?
(but somehow I never understood your views about Richard Witschge ;) )

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » di jan 20, 2004 5:24 pm

philippe schreef:But that does not prevent the official Ajax site to do something better for foreigners, does it ?

Absolutely.

I don't think they're doing that badly, by the way. At least there's a decent match report of every game now (first team and Young Ajax) - and the most important news facts (transfers, injuries) are reported also. They're doing fairly well. But for some reason they never translate player interviews (not even the ones with players from abroad, who surely have non-Dutch fans) or, for example, their very nice 'winter break specials' about former players now working as coaches/officials.

The only thing I still think is absolutely appalling is the way they're (not) selling game tickets. The only way to purchase tickets from abroad is ordering a tremendously overpriced 'hospitality package', which usually include all kinds of silly stuff that is normally free (a visit to De Toekomst) or cheap (voucher to the Ajax Museum, lunch at De Toekomst or Soccer World).

For an average league game you can buy the best seat in the stadium for 39 euros, whereas a visit to De Toekomst is free and lunch at De Toekomst doesn't get more expensive than, say, 10 to 15 euros (including drinks). For this 'package', however, Ajax charges 79 up to 99 euros, forcing you to pick up your ticket at a time you'd rather want to get pissed in Rembrandtplein (like your fellow Dutch Ajax fans are doing at the very same time), instead of 'visiting' De Toekomst (which is dead on Wednesday afternoons or Sunday mornings). This a total disgrace and absolutely ridiculous. And for the record: I told them this in person.

The English version of the website? Could be better, could be a lot worse. At least they're kind of keeping it up, whereas I've seen previous attempts to do an English version slowly die.

K.