Jan van Halst will be the new technical affairs commissioner at Ajax. At Ziggo Sport, the former Ajax player indicated on Friday evening that he was looking forward to his new position. Van Halst has been appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board for three and a half years. The team from Amsterdam initially hoped that Danny Blind would have wanted to resume his old position after his assistant national coachship, but were told a resounding ‘no’. Ajax therefore switched to Van Halst.
“It is certainly not a full-time job,” Van Halst said. “It’s more of an extension of what I do during the week, coaching and questioning people. That is now also expected, but at a distance. The distance from the football world also appeals to me the most. I have previously held management and executive positions at FC Twente. Sometimes that went very well, but the last period was less fun. Something like that no longer appealed to me, but trying to add something from a distance like this appeals to me.”
“And at Ajax I had a good time as a football player, although I also spent some time in dressing room 2,” Van Halst continued. “The people who welcomed me made me feel good and that has always stayed with me. The management and all employees at Ajax have to do all the work, the task of the supervisory board is to supervise. I spoke with the Supervisory Board and then with the Management Board, the Works Council and the Executive Council. I had a good feeling about that.”
With Van Halst’s appointment, the words of John Heitinga are being heeded. Ajax’s trainer demanded clarity at an online press conference on Wednesday about, among other things, the filling of the football-technical key positions within the club. Van Halst announced that he would no longer participate in talk shows, but would remain active as an analyst at Ziggo Sport.