Rapport Ling and why we should've been upset sooner (some Dutch due to quotes)

u/TeunAjax posted an article of VI where there's a lot of talk about the TH (Technisch Hart) and our disaster of yesterday evening. What I find interesting is that we're outraged by the performance but in reality it's the underlying structure at Ajax which is at fault.

To put this into a chronological context: after the Cruijff revolution, there was this concept implemented of a Technisch Hart (technical heart), or TH. After hearing reports that the TH wasn't implemented correctly, Cruijff signalled the direction to let Ling make a report on what was going wrong as Jonk and Bergkamp seemed to have multiple conflicts.

Ling found out that within Ajax, the whole concept of the TH (Technisch Hart) was very vague and some of the people at Ajax would abuse the TH to force on their will. Also, that a lot of people were involved with the TH, which aren't even supposed to have any role in them (Spijkerman for example). Especially about the role of Bergkamp, Ling was very critical.

A quote:

De precieze rol en functie van Bergkamp in het TH is mij onduidelijk. Ik zie een combinatie van kleinere rollen (assistent en techniektrainer) plus het TH lidmaatschap. Maar ik zie nergens dat Bergkamp hoofdverantwoordelijk voor is. Ik zie wel bevoegdheid over het een aantal zaken. Het lijkt er dus op dat Bergkamp wel bevoegd is maar niet echt verantwoordelijk. Dit lijkt mij een vreemde conclusie.

But in general, it became clear that the individuals in the TH seemed to be responsible for everything and nothing at the same time. Another quote (specifically again from the analysis of Bergkamp):

"Mede aansturen van BVO scouting en bewaken kwaliteit". Wie zou de BVO scouting nu eigenlijk moeten sturen? Alle TH leden een beetje? Of het TH als geheel? Dit botst ook met Overmars contract daarin staat dat hij "leiding geeft aan (oa.) de scouting" en dit is ook de praktijk.

Also, the reasoning why Jonk fell out with Bergkamp becomes a bit obvious in Ling's report:

"Meebeslissen over welke spelers door mogen stromen vanuit de jeugd en Jong" en "Meebeslissen over het doen van voorstellen welke jeugdspelers een contract mogen krijgen". Hoe gaat dit meebeslissen? Hoe verhoudt dit meebeslissen van Bergkamp zich tot de rol van Jonk als HJO?

Also on the role of Overmars there is a lot of discussion:

De rol van Overmars als directeur voetbal is onduidelijk. Hij lijkt de technische baas: "geeft leiding aan het TH", "geeft leiding aan de Toekomst" etc. Maar hoe kan hij het TH "vertegenwoordigen" terwijl hij er volgens zijn contract niet in zit? En hoe kan hij het TH en de directie dan verbinden?

And where Spijkerman's power is becoming obvious:

De Boer over besluitvorming aankopen en kritiek op Overmars: "Ik vind de kritiek niet terecht, want we overleggen alles. (...) Als het om mogelijke transfers gaat, praten Hennie Spijkerman, Dennis Bergkamp, Wim Jonk en ik mee. Soms komt het tot een stemming en dan is het vier tegen een, of drie tegen twee. En dan nemen we een besluit volgens democratisch principe.

Ling made it obvious that this is very dubious for numerous reasons, but the addition of Spijkerman is very odd.

Also, in his research, Ling requested documentation like agenda's of TH meetings, actions and decisions, notes (minutes according to translate, idk), argumentations of decisions. As Ling concluded: besides the agenda's of TH meetings, there were none of the above.

It's not a surprise that Ling had some tough conclusions:

Binnen het TH is er sprake van onprofessionele besluitvorming. Er is geen vastlegging van vergaderingen, acties, besluiten en onderbouwingen

De belangrijke technische zaken zoals speelwijze, transferbeleid, trainingsinhoud, doorstroom, individuele spelers etc. worden niet tot nauwelijks besproken in het TH.

Er zijn andere overlegvormen met meer aanwezigen dan alleen het TH en die worden wel genotuleerd. De assistenten lijken ook mee te stemmen over aankopen.

Also on budgetary cases, Ling found abysmal problems. Jonk seemed to be the only one who did formal budgets, the rest didn't. Also, the acquirement of Onana, Sinkgraven, Gudelj, Zimling, Sanogo and Younes weren't decided in the TH, but handled per SMS (!!!). On many of the cases, scouts deemed that the player wasn't ready to be bought. In Gudelj's case, three scouts judged Gudelj, one deemed him unfit for Ajax, two decided that he was to be followed, but not bought.

In Lings report it became very obvious that the only one working with actual documentation and cooperation was Jonk.

Ling make a lot of recommendations, but the main recommendation was to reform the TH into:

• The coach (in this case Keizer)
• Technical director (in this case Overmars)
• Head youth (in this case Ouaali)

He also wanted to formalise everyones tasks and responsibilities, because as you can read above, this was a main issue.

I'm writing was, but the problem is that his suggestions were thrown into the garbage bin by (mostly) Bergkamp and Overmars. You can guess why: it became very obvious that Bergkamp was one of the main factors of the trouble at Ajax. The follow up is history: Cruijff, Jonk and Trustful got kicked or forced out.

If anything became clear of Ling's report, it was that the goal of Plan Cruijff wasn't reached: sadly certain players used the good name of Cruijff to play the usual Ajax power games - which is nothing new in the history of Ajax.

We could have been outraged when Ajax appointed Keizer. We could have been outraged when Ajax decided that you need to get along with Spijkerman and Bergkamp to become head coach at Ajax. We could have been outraged when Bosz was forced out. But we should have been outraged when Bergkamp kicked Jonk out. And we should definitely have been outraged when Bergkamp and Spijkerman were picked over Johan Cruijff.