It’s just a short message sent by Royal Antwerp: Marc Overmars has suffered a stroke. The Belgian first division club announced that the recovery had already begun. The 86-time Dutch national player caused a stir in the spring with his aggressive behavior.
Former Dutch soccer player Marc Overmars has been taken to hospital after suffering a minor stroke. This was announced by his employer, the Belgian first division club Royal Antwerpen FC, via Twitter. The 49-year-old became unwell during the night, it was said, and Overmars is now doing well again. “Marc is doing well now, but he will have to take it easy for a while,” it said. He would focus on continued recovery with his family. They would not want to comment further.
Overmars has been Technical Director in Antwerp since March of this year. The team, coached by former Bayern professional Mark van Bommel, currently occupies third place in Belgium’s elite league. Previously, Overmars was sporting director at Ajax Amsterdam for ten years. With the club he also won the Champions League as a player in 1995, other prominent stations of the winger were FC Arsenal and FC Barcelona.
The 86-time national player, who failed in the semi-finals of the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship with Oranje, made an inglorious departure in Amsterdam. “I want to leave the Ajax side behind me and open a new chapter here,” he said at his presentation in Antwerp. He resigned as sporting director at Ajax in early February.
It was previously known that he had sent messages to club employees that “had crossed the line”, as the club put it. “This behavior is unacceptable, especially for someone in my position,” Overmars said at the time. Meanwhile, Leen Meijaard, head of the Ajax supervisory board, had emphasized: “It is shocking for the women who had to deal with this behavior.” However, “unfortunately he crossed the line so that further cooperation was out of the question, as he himself recognized.”