Dutch Pundits Criticize Feyenoord's Rigaux: Mislintat 2.0?
Dévy Rigaux has barely closed his first transfer window at Feyenoord and already the knives are out. On De Telegraaf’s Kick-off podcast, Valentijn Driessen and Mike Verweij dismantled the club’s new technical director, calling his opening months in Rotterdam anything but a success.
Verweij didn’t bother with a warm-up. “When I look at that round-table discussion by Rigaux with several journalists, I really fear the worst,” he said, before dropping the comparison that will make every Feyenoord fan wince. “I hope this does not become the new Sven Mislintat.”
That name still stings in Dutch football. And Verweij kept leaning on the parallel.
According to him, Rigaux’s public stance on key files already betrays a lack of realism. The Belgian reportedly said that “no club is allowed to talk to Hadj Moussa, because he has an ongoing contract.” Verweij pounced on that line.
“That is very naive, because it happens everywhere,” he argued, pointing to the unwritten rules of the modern transfer market, where agents and clubs talk long before any ‘official’ move is made.
The Roma–Read saga came up next. Rigaux is said to have insisted there was no €30 million bid for Read, only an official offer of €26 million. Verweij countered that directly, claiming that in phone conversations the Italians “immediately indicated they wanted to move towards that 30 million.” For the journalist, hiding behind the technicality of an “official bid” felt like a worrying kind of semantics.
The criticism didn’t stop at numbers.
Verweij again drew a straight line back to the former Ajax chief. “He brings in players from the second Bundesliga,” he said, highlighting another echo of the Mislintat era. Around Rigaux, he added, there is already a familiar media mood. “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.”
At that point, Driessen stepped in and raised the temperature.
“It was truly a scandalous round-table discussion!” he snapped. What really bothered him was the way Rigaux spoke about Dennis te Kloese and the previous regime. “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 enjoying the luxury of hindsight while publicly distancing himself from the foundations laid before him. And that, he suggested, will only be tolerated if the new man actually delivers.
“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 continued, his tone turning sharper. In sporting terms, he sees a clear risk. “You can go into the Champions League with this team, but you will finish bottom without a chance. And then what is the value of Read, Hadj Moussa and Zechiël?”
The warning is obvious: if Feyenoord stumble in Europe, the transfer values of their prized assets could collapse, and with them the credibility of Rigaux’s entire strategy.
Verweij then landed a final blow, returning to his central theme: the charm offensive.
“Everyone falls for his slick talk!” he said, before mocking one of the bolder claims around a new signing. Tjark Ernst, according to some, is “material for Die Mannschaft.” Verweij’s verdict was brutal: “Every diagonal ball is a goal conceded!”
For now, Rigaux still has time and the backing of Feyenoord’s hierarchy. But if this first window really does turn out to be Mislintat 2.0, the applause around the new technical director will not last long in Rotterdam.
