Feyenoord's Power Struggle: Board Criticized Over €40m Transfer Window
The knives were out in De Telegraaf’s Kick-Off studio on Monday, and Feyenoord’s board found themselves squarely in the firing line. According to Mike Verweij and Valentijn Driessen, the Rotterdam club didn’t just misjudge the transfer market – they sabotaged their own room to grow.
“They did something wrong in this window”
As the conversation turned to Feyenoord, Verweij didn’t bother with soft landings.
“Rigaux has taken a huge swipe at his predecessor Te Kloese,” he began. The implication: the new technical leadership had loudly distanced itself from the old regime. The reality, Verweij argued, looks very different when you run the numbers.
With the money for Hadj Moussa factored in, Te Kloese “had 40 million,” Verweij claimed. Offers had been on the table. A €25 million bid for Ueda, who eventually went to Lille OSC “far too cheaply.” Read, he said, “could almost have risen to 35 million.” Hull City had put €20 million on the table for Targhalline.
Those figures formed the backbone of his accusation. Feyenoord, in his view, had the chance to cash in smartly and chose not to.
“If they had simply done their job and sold the right players, Feyenoord would for the time being have had a great deal of financial resources,” Verweij argued. He reminded viewers that Te Kloese had assembled a squad “worth around €120 million.” Against that backdrop, he drew a blunt conclusion: “I think Rigaux and Eenhoorn did something wrong in this transfer window. If they had sold Read immediately, they could have been much more effective in the transfer market.”
The criticism was not about one missed sale. It was about a strategy that, in their eyes, never got off the ground.
The weight of the Friends of Feyenoord
Driessen picked up the thread and dragged the discussion straight into the club’s ownership structure.
“It all comes back to the Friends of Feyenoord again,” he said. They hold 49 per cent of the shares. That number, on paper, is clear enough. The consequences of it, Driessen argued, are anything but straightforward.
He outlined the mechanism: the moment Feyenoord pay €17.5 million, they lose 25 per cent. Two years later, the process repeats. On top of that, Feyenoord are obliged to buy part of the Friends’ shares if they post a positive transfer balance in a window. That clause loomed large over the summer.
“And they certainly would have done that if one of those transfers had gone through,” Driessen insisted. In his view, a big outgoing deal – such as Hadj Moussa – would have pushed the balance so high that Feyenoord would have been forced to buy back part of the Friends’ stake.
The suggestion was clear: sporting and financial logic collided with shareholder interests, and the shareholders won.
“Eenhoorn is simply an extension of the Friends”
Then came the most pointed accusation of the evening.
“The Friends of Feyenoord do not want out,” Driessen said. That, in itself, is not unusual for an investor group. What followed was more explosive. According to him, Robert Eenhoorn did not just walk into De Kuip as a neutral figure.
“Eenhoorn came in at the request of the Friends. He is their favourite, and became director. So he is not going to go against those Friends.” From there, Driessen drew a direct line to one of the most talked-about non-transfers of the window.
“Eenhoorn allowed himself to be influenced into not letting the Hadj Moussa transfer go through,” he claimed, pointing straight at Feyenoord’s technical director.
The club had publicly pointed to a rejected bank guarantee as the reason the deal with Al-Ittihad collapsed. Driessen dismissed that explanation.
“It concerns a €40 million transfer. It concerns Saudi Arabia, just ask Ajax. They have always had the money and are solvent.” In other words: this was not, in his eyes, a case of financial risk. It was a choice.
Silence, delays and a missed medical
Driessen pushed on. For him, the pattern around Hadj Moussa’s move said as much as the outcome.
“Feyenoord were also hardly reachable by phone, it was very difficult to get in touch with them,” he said. Contact dragged. Calls went unanswered or unreturned. Time slipped away.
“It was dragged out for a very long time, and in the end the medical could no longer take place.” The clock, not the bank, killed the transfer.
In Driessen’s framing, this was not administrative clumsiness but a deliberate slow walk. A transfer that could have reshaped Feyenoord’s balance sheet fizzled out in a fog of delay.
“Robert Eenhoorn is simply an extension of the Friends of Feyenoord. He is their mate,” he continued. “The moment someone puts you forward and you can serve their interests, that happens nine times out of 10.”
He recalled that Eenhoorn had “previously made it known that he is not exactly eager to buy out the Friends.” With that in mind, Driessen’s conclusion was ruthless: “And then you remain stuck with those Friends.”
The picture painted in the studio was stark. Not of a club outplayed by the market, but of one boxed in by its own power structure, turning away from major offers and a €40 million deal that might have changed the trajectory of the squad and the balance sheet alike.
The next window will show whether Feyenoord are willing to break that grip – or whether the Friends’ shadow will keep dictating how far the club dares to go.
