Ari Efstathiou lifts lid on Ajax Amsterdam’s frosty relations 

Cape Town Spurs chairman Ari Efstathiou has lifted the lid on the Ajax Amsterdam and Ajax Cape Town frosty relationship after CT Spurs secured promotion to the DStv Premiership. 

Ajax was renamed CT Spurs after Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam ended their relationship with Ajax CT after 20 years.

CT Stars, who were the minority shareholder of Ajax CT took control of the franchise and recently returned to SA’s top-flight. They played out to a 0-0 draw with Maritzburg United in the PSL Promotional Playoffs at Harry Gwala Stadium on Wednesday night. 

As a result, Shaun Bartlett’s charges finished top of the mini PSL Promotional Playoffs table with 10 points.

After the game, the chairman did not beat around the bush as he spilt the beans when he was asked what led to the end of Ajax Cape Town’s relationship with Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam.

THE REAL WHY AJAX AMSTERDAM CUT TIES WITH AJAX CAPE TOWN 

Efstathiou reckons that the Dutch side were only interested in how many players they would get from them without contributing much to the Urban Warriors. 

And that is what led to the end of their relationship that spanned more than 20 years.

“You must remember that in greater situations, we were like little pimple in South Africa,” said the Spurs chairman. 

“But the truth is, all they were interested in was to see how many players they can take from us. And at the lowest possible price. 

“They hardly contributed any money for 20 years and that’s something nobody knows. We were put in the hardest situation in regard to giving us a coach or two. On the youth side, for example, they would give us a head of youth but other than that we held our own.”

Efstathiou went on to reveal that the club had to sell their star players most of the time to sustain the team. 

“That’s why we always had to sell players because they refused to put money. At the end of the day, we had to sit back and say what do we want out of this club, and what do they want,” he added. 

“For us, we wanted success and to win the league, promote young players and they would disagree with that. We wanted to win the league because we didn’t make money. But all they were interested in was how many players they were going to get.

“And you can’t have a relationship like that. We basically disagreed for a period of time, probably for the past 10 years.”

AJAX AMSTERDAM’S CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT FREQUENTLY ANOTHER PROBLEM 

The chairman also touched on the issue of Ajax Amsterdam changing their management every three years. He maintains that this caused setbacks in terms of the club’s progress. And the new guys would come up with new ideas, and they will have to start all over from scratch. 

“And it also didn’t help because they kept on changing the management every three years. 

“The new guys come in and they have different ideas. And we got to settle back again and start all over again. They used to come once a year to visit us. We used to go to fantastic restaurants eat together and then they leave. That was it,” explained Efstathiou.

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