“Ward cancels after disastrous talks, Ajax is now going full for German”

Julian Ward will not succeed Marc Overmars at Ajax. The 41-year-old Englishman has pulled the plug on a deal, De Telegraaf reports. The team from Amsterdam switches at lightning speed and is now going for Sven Mislintat (50).

According to the morning newspaper, Ajax thought it had almost got a hold of Ward, but the talks with Liverpool’s technical director were ‘disastrous’. It is not clear why exactly he dropped out after the negotiations with Edwin van der Sar, but it is said in the environment of the Briton that he is disappointed in Ajax’s decisiveness.

It is a major setback for the number two in the Eredivisie, which is urgently switching to a new candidate. Mislintat now seems to be the intended technical director in the Johan Cruijff Arena. He played that role until a year ago at VfB Stuttgart. Previously, he was the chief scout at Borussia Dortmund and also worked in Arsenal’s scouting. The Gunners later refrained from promoting him to td.

The German therefore has only limited experience as a technical policymaker. His period at Stuttgart was also not an unqualified success. Nevertheless, he has now received an offer from Ajax, which seems to want to make haste. There would even be a second German as an alternative in the picture.

Meanwhile, Ajax hopes to terminate the contract of technical manager Gerry Hamstra on April 1. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has to work with the new technical boss and he will be responsible for the scouting for the time being.