Friday, October 29, 2021 at 15:15

Arne Slot looks with horror at the excesses that played out around Mark Koevermans in the past. Feyenoord’s general manager announced his departure on Wednesday after a series of incidents prevented him from making good decisions without questioning whether that would have an impact on his security situation and that of his family. Slot said during the press conference in the run-up to the Eredivisie match with Sparta Rotterdam on Sunday afternoon that the departure of Koevermans and the red annual figures did not cause unrest in the player group.

Slot acknowledged at the press conference that it was anything but quiet at Feyenoord last week. “Certainly not at Feyenoord. But at our training complex it was very quiet, because certain guys had a few days off with us.” The trainer has no problem keeping the unrest caused by the departure of Koevermans and the announcement of the annual figures away from his team. “That’s not really a huge item within our player group. We know what we are doing and try to get better every day. We won in Leeuwarden on Sunday, which gave us a very good feeling. So I have to tell you honestly that there is no particular turmoil in our group.”

Slot, in his own words, was more shocked by the excesses surrounding Mark Koevermans than by the eventual departure of the general manager himself. “I find it very annoying that he has chosen to stop as general manager,” says the Feyenoord trainer. “I really enjoyed working with him, even though it was a remote collaboration. He is often in De Kuip and we are often at our training complex 1908. Of course a lot has been said about it in recent days. I also said something about it when the threats were there, so I’d almost say there’s not much more for me to add.”

Several people within Feyenoord have been threatened in the past. Slot, however, does not wonder where he got in now. “It is clear that I look at it with horror,” says the trainer. “I think all the words you can use for it have already been used in the past week. I can hardly put it into words better how that was said at the time. I now choose again for my own words, but I think that is very well defined. I look at it in horror before I use another word.”