Although they were friends, Yang Yang had to admit that Van Basten was a great star, but not a successful head coach. Throughout his managerial career, he had never achieved truly satisfactory results.
During his time managing Ajax, he had carried the hopes of the club's management that the team would reclaim the Champions League within five years. They had invested heavily in the transfer market. Sulejmani's transfer fee alone had reached sixteen million euros—twice the Dutch transfer record at the time, and a quarter of Ajax's financial income.
It could be said that this gamble had been a disaster for Ajax. They had wanted high investment and high returns, but the result had been a complete failure. Not one of the players they brought in had played up to his price tag. Sulejmani had spent four years at Ajax without ever performing well, and eventually left for Benfica on a free transfer.
It could be said that in this gamble, Van Basten and Ajax's management had completely drained the club's funds. From then until now, Ajax had suffered losses year after year, with no improvement whatsoever.
"Financial income didn't increase—in fact, it plummeted. The failed transfer operations dealt Ajax a tremendous blow, but on top of that, salaries throughout European Football kept rising over the years. From 2006 to 2010, over those five years, Ajax's wage expenditure increased by more than fifty percent."
"This isn't a problem with Ajax alone. It's a problem with Dutch football as a whole. Alkmaar declared bankruptcy and came under supervision, while Feyenoord almost followed in its footsteps. That traditional powerhouse never recovered. At the time, thirteen Dutch clubs were listed by the Football Association as suffering from serious financial crises, but in reality, even more teams never appeared on that list."
"Many people