Overmars’s Dutch ban extended worldwide

THE HAGUE: Disgraced former international Marc Overmars’s one-year fixed ban from working in Dutch football for sending sexually explicit pictures and videos to women staff has been extended worldwide by FIFA, the Dutch football federation said on Wednesday.

The ex-Netherlands winger resigned as Ajax’s director of football in February 2022 after admitting sending a “series of inappropriate messages” to female colleagues, saying he was “ashamed” of his behaviour.

A month later, he got a “second chance” at Royal Antwerp, appointed as technical director for the Belgian club. The Dutch Sports Tribunal (ISR) ruled Overmars should be prohibited from “exercising any function” with an organisation affiliated with the Dutch FA for two years, one of which was suspended.

But that suspension has now been widened. The federation said it was obliged “to share this ban with FIFA’s disciplinary committee”. “They then decide if this ban must also be imposed globally,” the federation told AFP. “The disciplinary committee decided to widen the ban.”