The winter transfer window is officially open. With business now being done between clubs, the footballing world saw one of the rather bizarre ways of welcoming a transfer when Ajax director Marc Overmars ripped up Ajax’s new signing Sébastien Haller’s contract at the player’s unveiling.
Haller recently completed his medical with the Dutch Eredivisie winners as he applies the finishing touches on a move from West Ham to AFC Ajax.
He parted ways with the London club for a reported fee of €25m with add ons included, and signed his new contract during his unveiling in the presence of Ajax club director Marc Overmars.
Overmars accompanied the Cote d’Ivoire forward as he posed with the club shirt and his contract papers, but just when all the pictures were taken by the press, he ripped up the contract papers while the camera was still rolling.
The clip has gone viral on social media platforms, as fans try to figure out the reason why the former Dutch footballer tore up Haller’s freshly signed contract into pieces.
While some fans wondered why would Overmars do such a thing on air, an explanation might be in the fact that the papers shown in the player unveiling pictures are not the binding documents: the finishing touches to signing a player from a different club are usually applied behind closed doors.
Despite finding the goal spectacularly on occasion, the 26 year-old forward had a rough eighteen months playing for West Ham in the Premier League as he struggled to maintain consistency after moving there from Eintracht Frankfurt in the German Bundesliga.
Haller will hope that his new adventure would not end in a similar fate as the ripped up contract papers at his unveiling, and would instead help him find his form and confidence once again.
