“With pain in the heart”: big boss Wout van Aert leaves Visma – Lease a Bike and starts working at football club AZ

READ ALSO. Wout van Aert speaks out after a serious fall and surgery: “Standing still means going backwards”

The Dutch news medium BNR first reported the news, which was later confirmed by the Dutch cycling website Wielerflits and on Wednesday by Visma – Lease a Bike itself. Zeeman will therefore finish this cycling season with the ‘Killer Bees’ and will only switch to the Alkmaarders on December 1, who themselves have other direct vacancies.

After 13 years of being partly responsible for the successful reconstruction of the team, Zeeman is now choosing a new step in his career.

“This is a difficult decision, which I also take with pain in my heart,” Zeeman said on the website of the Dutch formation. “Precisely because I have embraced this wonderful organization so much. We have come a long way and together we have made ourselves one of the most successful teams in recent years. I am incredibly proud of that. Our culture with our people and our innovative approach has ensured a great development in which we were able to write history together, with the successful year 2023 as the absolute highlight. Team Visma | Lease a Bike is my family, into which I have lovingly put my heart and soul for 13 years. But I also believe that it is good for everyone’s development to look for new challenges and incentives over time. I will be working as general manager of football club AZ. I also dare to take that step because I will soon leave our strong professional organization, led by my good friend Richard Plugge, in the very good hands of my colleagues. But first we want to write history together, also in 2024. We are fully engaged in this, with a very good start to the year, and we want to continue this strongly in the coming months.”

CEO Richard Plugge thus loses not only a colleague, but also a friend. “First of all, I think it is a great shame that Merijn, friend and dear colleague, is leaving our organization,” he said. “I understand his motivation and respect his difficult decision. Together, supported by a strong and loyal group of people, we have built the team and Merijn has been invaluable with his vision and leadership qualities. With his ideas, drive and knowledge, and with the right people around him, he has taken the sport in general and our team in particular to a higher level. We are extremely grateful to him for that! Over the past period, we have created a very robust professional organization with a well-thought-out performance program based on a culture of broad involvement and a high degree of individual ownership. Always and in every area based on the idea that no individual is greater than the collective. Merijn’s departure is painful on the one hand, but at the same time we have a lot of confidence in our organization, which is rock solid. In the coming months we will make it clear how that house will be further furnished in the future and, as always, we will start internally. Of course, together we will do everything we can to make 2024 a successful year. We are looking forward to that even more now.”