Monday, June 7, 2021 at 7:05 PM

Riemer van der Velde has approached Klaas-Jan Huntelaar for a return to sc Heerenveen. The former chairman of the club from Friesland says in the podcast Radio Camataru from FeanOnline that he has emailed the 37-year-old striker asking if he would consider returning to the club where he played between 2004 and 2006. Huntelaar has left Schalke 04 behind and was also linked to a return to De Graafschap.

“Last year he (Huntelaar, ed.) was here with Ted van Leeuwen (at that time FC Twente technical director, ed.) and then he doubted what he would do. He wanted to talk about it with me and Van Leeuwen, who is now a manager at NEC. He ate a little fish here and I said: ‘Come to Heerenveen, because we can use you. And I do want to mediate in that,” says Van der Velde, who was chairman of Heerenveen between 1983 and 2006 and was subsequently appointed honorary chairman.

Van der Velde believes that Huntelaar can still be of value to Heerenveen. Coincidentally, I sent him another email yesterday. I had Karel Brandsma (Scout van Heerenveen, ed.) on the phone and asked: ‘What do you think about Huntelaar?’ Karel said: ‘Well, that wouldn’t be strange’. So I sent Klaas-Jan an email: think about it again”, says Van der Velde. De Graafschap also hopes to tempt Huntelaar to return to the Dutch fields.

Chairman Martin Mos initially announced that a meeting would take place with Huntelaar, although general manager Hans Martijn Ostendorp later weakened this. “We really appreciate him as a figurehead of our region and a former player of the club. But there is still an important difference between hope and reality. Klaas-Jan has indicated that in the coming period, during his well-deserved vacation, he wants to think about how he wants to fill in his life after this season. With the most important question: whether or not to continue playing football.”

Huntelaar entered the youth academy of De Graafschap at the age of eleven. After six years he left for PSV, but in 2003 he returned on a rental basis. Huntelaar is transfer-free from 1 July. He scored two goals in nine Bundesliga games in his second stint at Schalke 04. However, his contribution was not enough to keep the club from Gelsenkirchen for the highest level and a contract extension was not possible.