AZ hand Martin van Geel five year 'stadium ban'
14 April: Martin van Geel is no longer welcome at the
home ground of his previous club, AZ Alkmaar. Much to his own
surprise the technical director of Ajax received a
registered letter from AZ, in which club president Dirk
Scheringa accuses his former technical director of
'insider trading' and officially informs him that he
will be denied access to AZ's stadium for five years.
"This makes no sense," Van Geel said. "I want to
cherish the good memories of my time in Alkmaar. This is way
over the top."
Van Geel joined Ajax in
June 2005, coming from AZ, where he was tremendously
succesful as a technical director and 'partner in crime' of
head-coach Co Adriaanse. Van Geel and Adriaanse turned AZ into
a major force in Dutch football: all of a sudden AZ played
spectacular football, were candidates for the Dutch title and
were literally ten seconds away from the UEFA Cup final of
2005. AZ chairman Dirk Scheringa was 'disappointed' when Van
Geel 'let him down'. It appears that Scheringa can
not forgive him.
In his letter Scheringa accuses Van Geel of 'insider
trading' in the transfers of Ron Vlaar (who eventually didn't
join Ajax but Feyenoord) and
Kenneth Perez, who will play at the Amsterdam ArenA next
season. Earlier this season, in September 2005, Van Geel
gave the Eredivisie match between AZ
and Ajax in Alkmaar a miss. He did not want to add
fuel to the flames, while AZ announced that Van
Geel's safety 'could not be guaranteed'.
"They accuse me of using, in my current
job, knowledge that I gathered while working for AZ,"
explained Van Geel. "What is that? Almost everyone knows
everything. I can not erase my memory, can I?"
Dutch football weekly Voetbal International suggest
on their website that the decision to hand Van Geel
this 'stadium ban' was probably sparked off by recent
attempts by Van Geel to get more AZ players to sign
for Ajax for next season.
According to NOS Teletekst Ajax chairman John Jaakke
has sent Scheringa a letter saying that Ajax do
not agree on this ban. The Ajax chairman has kindly
invited the AZ board to come to Amsterdam and discuss the
matter. (MP)
Sources: De Telegraaf, NOS Teletekst, VI.nl
UPDATE 15 April 2006: KNVB director Henk
Kesler has made crystal clear how he feels about the
incident in today's issue of De Telegraaf: "I was in
my car when I heard about the stadium ban for Van Geel and I
laughed so loud I almost crashed into a lamppost. For a second
I thought it was an April Fool's Day joke, but it's a bit late
for that. It is pretty absurd for a football club to hand a
stadium ban to the technical director of another club. Was
Martin van Geel involved in criminal activities for which a ban
would normally be appropriate? This makes no sense whatsoever
and Mr Scheringa is making a complete fool out of himself.
Perhaps we should hand him a stadium ban for the remaining 37
stadiums in Dutch professional football." (MP)
The KNVB boss expects AZ to lift the ban soon enough and
doesn't expect it will be necessary for the KNVB to take
action.
UPDATE 16 April 2006: Let's just call this affair a storm in
a teacup, shall we? AZ president Dirk Scheringa gave
Ajax chairman John Jaakke a quick phonecall this
morning to inform him that the 'stadium ban' for Ajax's
technical director, Martin van Geel, has been
lifted. Scheringa banned Van Geel from the AZ
premises for five years on Friday. He was
heavily criticized for it by - amongst others - the KNVB.
The ban lasted two days and was very effective: Martin van Geel
did not get into Alkmaarderhout Stadium on Friday or
Saturday... (MP)
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