Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 09:07• Chris Meijer • Last update: 09:16

The ways of Sparta Rotterdam and Henk van Stee separate immediately, the club announces through the official channels. It General Newspaper reported last week that the technical director had left Het Kasteel furious after a conversation with general manager Manfred Laros. Now Sparta announces that the collaboration with Van Stee will be terminated.

“Sparta Rotterdam and technical director Henk van Stee say goodbye to each other. After mutual consultation, it has been decided that it is best for the club if the roads part. “The club needs peace and clarity. The focus of everyone at Sparta Rotterdam should be on sporting achievements. With the arrival of a new technical man, we will ensure that the club is ready for the upcoming transfer window and strengthen the team in consultation with the technical staff for the second half of the competition.”

Laros and Van Stee would have been at odds with each other for some time. The general manager of Sparta would have been disturbed by the fact that Van Stee spoke publicly about amounts in the media. Van Stee was of the opinion that Laros should be allowed to take more financial risks. Sparta is currently in sixteenth place in the Eredivisie with ten points. The club has only won two of their fourteen games. Van Stee is of the opinion that the current situation could have been avoided if he had been allowed onto the market earlier in the summer with the transfer millions for Abdou Harroui, which were due at that time.

Harroui seemed to be heading for the exit all summer, but his departure was only smoothed out on the final day of the transfer market. Formally, he is leased for half a million euros to Sassuolo, which must exercise an option to buy three million if certain conditions are met. In the summer, Sparta also sold Laros Duarte on deadline day, which went to FC Groningen for 650,000 euros. Intended purchases such as Wouter Burger, Tijjani Reijnders and Oussama Darfalou did not come at the last minute, making it a frustrating transfer summer for the Rotterdam team.

The question is what Henk Fraser will decide now. It General Newspaper Fraser and Van Stee already called ‘two hands on one stomach’, while the trainer himself opposed it last week RTV Rijnmond said to ‘have to think carefully’ when the technical director left. “But I assume that it will be solved,” Fraser said at the time. “I came to Sparta based on Henk’s ideas. Is that possible if he leaves? I do face a dilemma if things go wrong, but that’s the worst case scenario.”