Arsenal’s former transfer chief Sven Mislintat has been called a ‘master con man’ and a ‘charming swindler’ by Ajax’s incoming CEO Alex Kroes.
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Mislintat, who spent 14 months as Arsenal’s head of recruitment and oversaw the arrivals of Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Lucas Torreira, was sacked by Ajax in September.
Kroes, meanwhile, used to own Dutch club Go Ahead Eagles and was a director at AZ Alkmaar before he opted to join Ajax earlier this year, although a non-compete clause has meant that he is unable to start his role until next March.
Mislintat was sacked by Ajax after just four months as the club’s director of football and is being investigated over the €8 million (£6.8m) summer signing of Borna Sosa, who was represented by a German agency which has shares in the football data firm Matchmetrics, which is partially owned by Mislintat.
In the book ‘Ajax In Crisis’, which is written by Dutch journalist Menno de Galan and was released this week, Kroes slammed Mislintat’s short stint at Ajax, labelling him as a ‘master con man’ and a ‘charming swindler’.
Kroes also described Ajax’s last two transfer windows as ‘the worst in the club’s history’.
In a section of the book serialised by Trouw, Kroes said of Mislintat’s transfer strategy: ‘Four left backs?! I would have given people a slap in the neck if I, as general manager, had known about it.
‘Four left defenders and no right wingers. It’s really terrible.’
After a woeful start to the season, Ajax currently sit 12th in the Eredivisie, 24 points behind league leaders PSV.
The Dutch club are also bottom of their Europa League group which includes Marseille, Brighton and AEK Athens, and are highly likely to miss out on reaching the knockout stage.
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