Verweij and Driessen Critique Feyenoord's Rigaux: Concerns Raised

Dévy Rigaux has barely closed his first transfer window at Feyenoord and the knives are already out. In the Kick-off podcast of De Telegraaf, Valentijn Driessen and Mike Verweij tear into the new technical director and his early months in Rotterdam, calling the window “no success at all” and warning of an Ajax-style fiasco.

Verweij doesn’t bother with a soft opener. “When I look at that round-table discussion by Rigaux with several journalists, I really fear the worst,” he says, before immediately reaching for a painful comparison. “I hope this does not become the new Sven Mislintat.”

That name alone is enough to make any Eredivisie director wince.

Very naive

Verweij points at specific statements from Rigaux that set off alarm bells for him. The first: the way Rigaux spoke about Hadj Moussa’s situation.

“He says: ‘No club is allowed to talk to Hadj Moussa, because he has an ongoing contract.’ Well, that is very naive, because it happens everywhere,” Verweij argues. In other words: that’s not how the market works at the top level, and everyone knows it.

Then there is the saga around Read and the interest from Roma. Rigaux publicly denied a €30 million offer, insisting the “official bid” stood at €26 million. Verweij disputes the framing.

“He also says there was no bid of 30 million for Read, with Rigaux hiding behind the ‘official bid’ of 26 million. But in telephone contact Roma immediately indicated they wanted to move towards that 30 million.”

For Verweij, that sounds like a director leaning on semantics rather than giving the full picture.

Echoes of Mislintat

The Ajax parallel keeps returning. Verweij sees more than just a communication issue.

“He brings in players from the second Bundesliga,” he notes, again linking Rigaux to Mislintat, who famously raided Germany’s lower tiers during his chaotic spell in Amsterdam. “And another similarity is that you can sense in the media that everyone is over the moon with Rigaux, as if a world wonder has walked in. That was also the case with Mislintat.”

That honeymoon atmosphere around a “visionary” technical director, Verweij suggests, is exactly what preceded disaster at Ajax.

Driessen doesn’t disagree. He sharpens the tone.

Scandalous round-table

“It was truly a scandalous round-table discussion!” Driessen snaps. His main irritation: how Rigaux spoke about the period under Dennis te Kloese.

“The way he spoke about Dennis te Kloese... He did not say it directly, but he did let all kinds of things slip about the Te Kloese period. Too many players, far too much in wages, too many write-downs... He knew what he was getting into, didn't he?”

For Driessen, Rigaux is effectively criticising the legacy of a man who delivered trophies and Champions League football, while acting as if the problems were a surprise.

That leads him to the key question: can Rigaux match that sporting level with his “new way” of working?

“Well, I'm very curious whether in that, according to him, ‘completely different way’ he is going to achieve the same results as Dennis te Kloese,” Driessen fumes.

Champions League warning

On the pitch, Driessen fears the consequences of what he sees as a weak window.

“You can go into the Champions League with this team, but you will finish bottom without a chance,” he predicts. “And then what is the value of Read, Hadj Moussa and Zechiël?”

The message is clear: if Feyenoord underperform in Europe, the sporting and financial damage could hit the very players Rigaux is now building around.

Verweij then adds a final, stinging comparison with Mislintat, this time about how Rigaux sells his ideas.

“Everyone falls for his slick talk!” he says. One example he cites is goalkeeper Tjark Ernst, who has been talked up as potential “material for Die Mannschaft.” Verweij is unimpressed. “Every diagonal ball is a goal conceded!”

The verdict from the two Telegraaf voices is ruthless. For them, Feyenoord are gambling on a director whose first moves and public appearances already carry the shadows of one of Dutch football’s most notorious recent failures.