Ajax fires Heitinga after terrible Champions League, dismal Eredivisie start
Ajax have sacked their manager, John Heitinga. The 41-year-old was appointed in the summer and now departs the club with the team eight points behind rivals PSV and Feyenoord in the Eredivisie and bottom of the UEFA Champions League. Technical Director Alex Kroes has also offered his resignation. Heitinga’s assistant Marcel Keizer has also been relieved of his duties.
Heitinga’s departure follows another disappointing defeat in the Champions League on Wednesday evening, when they were beaten 3-0 by Turkish side Galatasaray in the Johan Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam. Heitinga’s side is just the third ever Dutch team to lose their first four games in the competition. They also broke an unwanted record of seven consecutive defeats in Europe, a first for the club.
The performances in the Dutch league, the Eredivisie, have also been below par. The Amsterdammers, who narrowly missed out on the title last season, have drawn as many games as they have won this season. Not only are they eight points behind Feyenoord and PSV, but they are also four points behind AZ Alkmaar, who are in third place. Ajax are currently fourth.
“It's a painful decision. But looking back at the past few months, we must conclude that things have turned out quite differently from what we had envisioned. We’ve seen too little progress and have unnecessarily dropped points,” Alex Kroes said in a statement on the club’s website.
Kroes has made his position available with immediate effect. Other board members and the Supervisory Board have urged Kroes to stay on for continuity. “My contract runs until the end of the season; should the club appoint a new technical director earlier, I will hand over my responsibilities at that time,” the 51-year-old said.
Kroes came into Ajax with a great deal of controversy. The director, who previously worked for AZ, had bought 17,000 publicly traded shares in the club around a week before he was appointed CEO. This is insider trading and led to him being removed from the position and being appointed Technical Director instead.
The news follows reports earlier this morning that Kroes had met up with former Ajax manager Erik Ten Hag last week. Ten Hag, who won three Eredivisie titles and two KNVB Cups in his first spell at the club, left Manchester United a year ago.
It has been reported that talks between Ten Hag and Ajax are currently ongoing. Fred Grim has been placed in charge of the first team on an interim basis, starting with the Eredivisie game away to FC Utrecht on Sunday.