FC Volendam and Ajax officially confirm partnership
13 July: Relations between Ajax and their 'neighbours' from
the nearby fisherman's town of Volendam have always been
particularly good and both clubs have an esteemed youth
development program that has
always produced skilled, creative and
offensive-thinking footballers over the years. A
partnership, however, was never established
(an attempt in May 2000 was unsuccesful). But
now it's official: at FC Volendam's Open Day at Kras
Stadium, Maarten Fontein (general director of Ajax) and Henk
Kras (chairman of FC Volendam) signed the contract that
officially makes their clubs partners.
The partnership of Ajax and FC Volendam can be described as
a 'technical partnership' similar to the ones
Ajax already had with First Division sides FC Haarlem (since
October 2000) and
FC Omniworld (since May 2005). FC Volendam will
not become Ajax's 'satellite club' or anything like
that. As the official FC Volendam website puts it...
Both FC Volendam and Ajax have a strong youth development
program and scouting apparatus. The clubs have now agreed a
far-reaching partnership, in order to improve their youth
program and scouting. This can be achieved by exchanging
youth coaches as well as youth players.
The plan is to enable outstanding Volendam youth players
to train at Ajax, entering the club's youth system 'from the
bottom', whereas Ajax players will get the opportunity to
develop at FC Volendam, as the clubs acknowledge that their
youth players normally do not mature at the same pace.
By linkinh their respective youth development programs, the
clubs feel that more players can be of value to one of the
two clubs at a given moment in time.
The two scouting departments will also be linked and
exhange information, so that players can be tranferred to
either Ajax or FC Volendam at the best possible
moment. The quality of coaches and training sessions can also
be brought on the same level by co-operating closely.
For the record: Ajax now have technical
partnerships with three Dutch First Division sides (FC Haarlem,
FC Omniworld and FC Volendam). The Amsterdam club also owns
one 'satellite club': South Africa's Ajax Cape Town.
Ajax's American satellite club, Ajax America, has been
buried in silence. The same goes for Ajax's partnership with
Mexico's Chivas Guadelajara: it was officially announced and
confirmed, but the end of it was never publicly announced. The
same goes for what remains of Ajax's partnership with Germinal
Beerschot Antwerp (GBA): did it die a silent death...?
It seems so, but we wouldn't know. When it comes to
their partnerships Ajax are rather reticent in case
of failure. Maybe that's what made them a bit cautious this
time: the official website of FC Volendam announced the new
partnership (with pictures of Fontein and Kras shaking hands!)
on Friday 13 July. Ajax.nl, however, did not mention it
yet... (MP)
Source: ELF magazine, FC Volendam.nl
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