Van Eijden: "This case will not stop us"

29 May: General manager of Ajax, Arie van Eijden, spoke to the media in an Ajax press conference on Monday. He talked about the invasion by the Dutch Fiscal Investigation Service (FIOD) and commented on the accusations of tax fraud. A large number of journalists were present at the ArenA.

"After Sunday's success," Van Eijden said, "I arrived at the ArenA on Monday and was confronted with a delegation of the Prosecution Counsel and the Ministry of Justice. I want to go through the day with you. At nine in the morning, there were twelve to fifteen people of the Prosecution Counsel and FIOD in our offices. They told us that Ajax, as a legal body, is under suspicion of irregularities in the events of two transfers. They did not tell us which ones."

"Out of precaution, we stopped the trade in Ajax stock at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange immediately. We went in conclave with the Prosecution Counsel and FIOD delegation, in order to find out more about the details. We found out it is all about the Shota Arveladze and Michael Laudrup files. They suspect that there's a fiscal debit of at least five million guilders."

"This morning, Shota was taken into custody. I can assure you, from my personal experience, that the personal damage of such a thing is significant. Arie van Os was interrogated as well."

"Ajax has all its transfers checked by the tax department. The 1997 transfers - the ones it's all about in this case - were checked by them as well. We have never heard that anything was wrong. As our stock was released at the Stock Exchange in 1998, there's been a large scale investigation. No irregularities were found. This club will pull through this. We are not gonna let this case stop us from bringing Ajax back to the top." (MP)

Source: Ajax.nl