Jens Toornstra urgently needed a new phone number this summer. The phone of the Feyenoord midfielder was red hot when a screenshot of the group app, specially made for the preparation for this season, was leaked and included his phone number. “In the week that a screenshot with, among other things, my number was leaked, I was called at least a hundred times,” said Toornstra on Wednesday.
Toornstra was suddenly in group apps with complete strangers. For example, one that also featured Bryan Linssen. “Created by a so-called team manager who told us to be at the club at eight o’clock the next day. People called who wanted to deliver pizzas, because apparently I had ordered them. The marketplace ad for my television, which I didn’t want to lose at all, was also a success,” Toornstra said General Newspaper back to that eventful week.
Toornstra couldn’t do anything on his phone anymore because he was constantly called, but now he has a different number. The situation arose because Steven Berghuis had suddenly left the special group app and Toornstra responded with a smiling emoji and the text ‘good luck man’. That, and his phone number, leaked through a screenshot. “I would say that to him in real life, that’s how we treat each other as players,” assures the midfielder. “I understand that if people have only seen that screenshot, they think we didn’t like Steven.”
“But that’s not true. But portraying in the media can sometimes be tough.” Toornstra has his reservations about the transfer from Berghuis to Ajax. “He is the ideal age to take another step. Where to, that was up to him. I had never done it, Ajax, but I was not in his situation. Everyone knows that it is sensitive. Steven knew that too, he will have included that in his decision.”
“It was often outlined online that we didn’t like him, but that was very succinct.” Berghuis, in consultation with Ajax and his management, has now reported many serious threats to his family and himself after his transfer to Ajax. This is apparent from a letter that his management has sent to the police and is in the possession of De Telegraaf.
Some of the threats specifically refer to December 19, the day that the Classic Feyenoord-Ajax in De Kuip is on the program. Berghuis knew his sensitive transfer from Rotterdam to Amsterdam would lead to criticism, but the messages he received were so threatening that he and his management had no choice but to go to the police.