A number of Sparta employees want the club to be taken care of by an independent party in the short term to put an end to the administrative unrest, reports RTV Rijnmond. At the Rotterdam club, there has recently been a clash between general director Manfred Laros and technical director Henk van Stee, with the latter now sick at home.
The situation between Van Stee and Laros escalated on Monday. Laros would be disturbed by the fact that Van Stee speaks publicly about amounts in the media. Van Stee is of the opinion that Laros should take more financial risks for reinforcements. Sparta is currently in sixteenth place in the Eredivisie with ten points from fifteen matches. The club has only won two of their fifteen matches. 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.
It is not known who the Sparta employees are who have requested an independent investigation. According to the regional broadcaster, the names are known to the editors. This would include a group of youth trainers. “For fear of reprisals, they provide anonymous text and explanations. For this group, which consists of more than twenty employees of the Castle Club, enough is enough,” writes RTV Rijnmond. Van Stee was initially appointed for the technical policy of the first team, but increasingly interfered with the youth academy. That would have led to a ‘very oppressive situation in which fear predominated’ among the group of youth trainers.
Youth trainers who did not click with Van Stee feared for their job for a long time, it sounds like. The power that the technical director expanded has already led to a number of layoffs. “People had to make way for it, such as two months ago when head of youth academy Dolf Roks was put aside,” says one of the employees. “Something that was not a surprise to anyone within the club, because Van Stee never made it a secret that he was not satisfied with him. He also regularly dropped the name of Roks’ successor, even before de Zeeuw was told to wait. “
Van Stee says in a response that he is not surprised by the criticism of his performance. “Everything I do is in the interest of the club,” said the technical man. “I have nothing to hide. If the club is vetted, then by name and by name and no one anonymously. With an open mind. Because then the facts will surface and you will see that I am right. I am not saying that I am never wrong but I have only one goal: to ensure that Sparta remains an Eredivisie club. And if, for example, a main youth training program has to make way for it, because I think that the training does not yield enough returns, that is my right as the person ultimately responsible, isn’t it?”