Nico-Jan Hoogma will leave as director of top football at KNVB this summer | Football

sport">Hoogma is considered a top candidate for the vacant director post at FC Twente. The club from Enschede is again without a general manager, after Jan-Willem Brüggenwirth, who had no affinity with football, turned out to be unsuitable for that role within a few months. Hoogma is a former player of FC Twente and was director of Heracles Almelo for eleven years before his period with the KNVB.

sport">“With the approaching expiry of your contract, you will reflect,” says Hoogma, who as a professional football player also played for SC Cambuur, Hamburger SV and Heracles Almelo. “If you continue, a whole cycle starts again. Two final tournaments are coming up and when Louis van Gaal is ready after the World Cup, the new national coach should already be there. Then you are talking about January 2023. If you appoint this person yourself, you would prefer to remain involved in the follow-up and you will therefore start a whole new cycle. I think that’s too long, I decided for myself.”

Women’s and Men’s World Championships

sport">The European Championship in England is on the program for the Dutch football players next summer. At the end of next year, the Dutch national team will participate in the World Cup in Qatar. Van Gaal (70) will retire after that tournament. “If my contract ends in June 2022, it will be a good time to stop,” says Hoogma. “My successor can therefore start with a clean slate.”

sport">Hoogma stopped as general manager at Heracles at the beginning of 2018 and started working as director of top football at the KNVB. He was then presented in Zeist together with the new national coach Ronald Koeman. Under Koeman’s leadership, the Orange squad finished second in the Nations League and qualified for the European Championship 2020. When that European Championship had to be postponed for a year due to the corona crisis, Koeman left for FC Barcelona.

Frank de Boer

sport">Hoogma chose Frank de Boer as the new national coach, but De Boer resigned last summer after the disappointing European Championship. The KNVB director succeeded Van Gaal, under whose leadership the Dutch national team qualified for the World Cup in Qatar last week.

sport">“I am sorry that Nico-Jan will not start a new cycle with us, but of course respect his decision,” says Marianne van Leeuwen, director of professional football. Fortunately, he will stay with him for a while and we can think about his succession together with him in the coming period. We expect to officially open the vacancy in February.”

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