South African soccer's Dutch connection

Ajax Amsterdam finds a home in Cape Town

By Mohammed Allie in Cape Town

Dutch soccer giants Ajax Amsterdam have set up a franchise in South Africa, with a complete state-of-the-art training facility.

The franchise, Ajax Cape Town, is the first of its kind in the world of professional football.

The links between the two clubs date back two years ago when Cape Town's sensation, Benni McCarthy joined the Dutch club, thanks to McCarthy's business manager, Rob Moore.

Jordaan hails Ikamva as one of the best in the world

The franchise is barely 18 months old, but Ajax Cape Town have enhanced their reputation as the trendsetters in South African football.

The club has set up a $1.28m headquarters and complex locally known as Ikamva, which means the future - the Xhosa translation of De Toekomst, Ajax Amsterdam's world famous youth development facility in Holland.

Ajax colours

The complex is smartly decorated in Ajax's traditional red and white. It boasts five training fields, an indoor Astroturf training pitch, seven change rooms including a jacuzzi and sauna for the professional team.

There is also a fully equipped gymnasium, a physiotherapy facility, kit rooms including a laundry, and a medical rehabilitation centre.

In addition, there are study rooms where the young players can do their school homework in between training sessions.

Ajax boss Michael van Praag launched Ikamva in Cape Town

"Ikamva compares very well with our complex in Amsterdam, De Toekomst," says Michael van Praag, President of Ajax Amsterdam, who jetted into Cape Town for the launch of Ikamva.

"The complex is breathing football. The details here are even better than ours," Mr van Praag added.

The Chief Executive Officer of the South African Football Association, Danny Jordaan, believes complexes like Ikamva should become part of every professional club in the country.

"I think other clubs will soon realise that schools of excellence like Ikamva are not an optional extra, but rather a core part of the business which professional football has become."

Mr Jordaan says he has seen some of the best football facilties in the world such as Zico in Rio, AC Milan, and Manchester United, but he believes "Ikamva ranks among the best in the world".

Home of talent

The impoverished Cape Flats area of Cape Town has long been renowned for producing talented young footballers.

Benni McCarthy has since moved to Spain's Celta Vigo

Several youngsters from the area have already made their mark with European clubs - McCarthy, who has since left for Spanish club Celta Vigo, and Manchester United's Quinton Fortune.

The excellent facilities at Ikamva coupled with the technical expertise of the Amsterdam-trained coaches at Ajax is bound to accelerate the development of Cape Town's talented young footballers.

"We have spotted lots of talent in the townships - we already have a very talented under-nine side," said Henk Bodewes, head coach of Ajax Cape Town.

However, in addition to talent you need good quality coaches and facilities like Ikamva."

Personal data

Undoutedly, one of the most impressive feature of Ikamva is the medical centre where data on all the players is stored on the computer.

Fortune, one of the stars from Cape Town

The man in charge of storing information is the club's Romanian-born biokineticist Vladimir Vlad.

"I have information like family history, injury records, what medication they are taking and many other details of each player stored on computer," he says.

Such other details include a player's height, weight, blood pressure and aspects of a player's physique that need to be developed.

The computer is linked to all the major medical physical facilities around the country making the stored data easily accessible.

With such facilities and the expertise at Ikamva, Cape Town's budding footballers have an unprecendented opportunity to develop their talent to the optimum.