Unrest at Dutch football association: Calls for board to resign

KNVB director Michael van Praag thinks the rest of the KNVB supervisory board for professional football should resign. According to him, the board has a structural problem with providing information and things can not continue like this, he said on RTL Late Night on Monday.

"You can not work with people who structurally don't inform their colleagues in the federation management. We will have a lively conversation this week with the sitting commissioners", Van Praag said. "We as federation management do not accept that we have colleagues who do not inform us. We are now taking the lead and we are going to do something about the decision structure and take a good look at the organizational structure, because it can not go on like this."

According to Van Praag, he was not informed about Bert van Oosteveen's resignation as director of professional football. He did get any notification about Gijs de Jong being considered as his successor. Nor was he informed of the appointment of Hans van Breukelen as the KNVB's technical director.

Van Praag is completely opposed to Van Oosteveen's resignation. According to him, Van Oosteveen became the scapegoat for the national football team's poor performance, but the supervisory board was equally responsible.

Johan Lokhorst resigned as chairman of the supervisory board on Friday after the Eredivisie clubs declared no confidence for the entire board. The other four board members - Simon Kelder, Henk Kivits, Johan de Koc and Ger Vermeulen - are still considering what to do.

Despite all this Van Praag denies that their is a crisis at the KNVB. "In professional football there are problems to be solved, but the amateur football is doing very well."