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Van der Sar expects to keep more Ajax stars

Ajax chief executive Edwin van der Sar hopes to keep more of the club's top stars this summer.

Midfielder Donny van de Beek has been linked with Manchester United and Real Madrid, while Andre Onana is a target for Chelsea and Barcelona.

But van der Sar thinks that when teams around Europe tighten their belts amid the COVID-19 crisis, it will help his team hold onto players who may otherwise have left for huge money.

"There is always interest in players from Ajax but for us, in general, it is not a necessity to sell," he said at the Leader's Week conference.

"Of course, we know that we're a little bit [of a] stepping stone.

"We want to be a club with European pedigree fighting for European prizes but we know there are bigger clubs and we probably develop players for those bigger clubs, like Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt.

"But in general, I presume the big clubs will be… less money around so we're going to have a lower transfer window, the fees will be lower. Then we'll hopefully lose less players than maybe we were expecting this summer."

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Ansser Sadiq

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