Ajax's Amsterdam Arena stadium will be renamed in honour of late Dutch footballing great Johan Cruyff.
The 1974 World Cup finalist won three European Cups and eight league titles with the Dutch record champions, before returning as a manager and leading his hometown club to two Dutch Cups and a European Cup Winners Cup.
He passed away in March 2016 at the age of 68 in Barcelona, a city and club who he also led to success and defined a much lauded style of play as a player and manager.
NIEUWS | Intentieovereenkomst: Amsterdam ArenA wordt Johan Cruijff ArenA 👉 https://t.co/bkVZhdSifJ pic.twitter.com/m52kfNiTiY
— AFC Ajax (@AFCAjax) April 25, 2017
Thirteen months on from his passing and on the week in which he would have turned 70, Ajax have announced that the Amsterdam Arena, which was completed in 1996, will now be known as the Johan Cruijff Arena, with Dutch great Ruud Gullit among those to welcome the news:
The best news today. The stadium #arena in #amsterdam will be called #JohancruijffArena pic.twitter.com/fS6AHlhYFz
— Ruud Gullit (@GullitR) April 25, 2017
In a statement, Ajax confirmed that the club's board and the mayor of the local Amsterdam municipality had agreed to the name change that would honour the "best footballer the Netherlands and Amsterdam has ever known".
