From Prague

Title: From Prague

Writer: Willem Vissers

Binding: Paperback

EAN: 9789048855001

Condition: Good

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Condition descriptions:
- As New: Hardly any signs of use, almost as new.
- Good: May show minor signs of use, such as some discoloration or a name on the endpapers, but generally no underlining or notes in the text.
- Fair: Book in fair condition. May show signs of use, such as discoloration, reading creases in spine, underlinings, notes, light soiling at edges, dog-ears, or a crooked spine.
- New: Book is new.

Description:
A book with countless memories of Ajax and the KNVB, as well as messages and intrigues from the bosom of the FIFA and UEFA boards

Michael van Praag (1947) is the most important football manager in the Netherlands in the last thirty years. He was chairman of Ajax for fourteen years and chairman of the KNVB for eleven years. In the spring of 2021 he retired as a board member of UEFA.
As a child of the Jewish person in hiding Jaap van Praag, he had an eventful childhood that led to silence at home about the horrors of the war. Father Jaap lost his parents and sister in the gas chambers. The relationship with Jaap van Praag, who ended up in a bitter divorce with his mother Hendrika - nickname Joep -, was difficult.
There were also striking parallels between father and son. For example, they were both chairman of Ajax. Michael van Praag, who had succeeded in business through a number of electronics stores at Schiphol and other airports, experienced great success at Ajax with Louis van Gaal as trainer. During a walk on the beach in Turkey in 1991, he even retained the ambitious Van Gaal for Ajax, because the trainer, as assistant, could not muster the patience to wait for his chance.
Van Praag is charming and hospitable. He sometimes has a reputation for being somewhat naive, although he has managed to open many doors through his great desire to connect. In 2014, he was the only director to stand against Sepp Blatter, because he felt that the FIFA president should not be eligible for re-election. When that did happen, he put himself forward as a candidate. He eventually withdrew. Later, after the forced departure of Michel Platini, he lost out to Aleksander Ceferin in the elections for the presidency of UEFA.
In the biography 'Van Praag' Willem Vissers describes the sometimes turbulent life of a real manager, 'one of the last of the Mohicans', as he is called somewhere, dating from a time when chairmen were still unpaid figureheads of clubs. A book with countless memories of Ajax and the KNVB, as well as reports and complications from FIFA and UEFA.