Yves Bissouma's Move to Ajax: Risks and Reactions
Yves Bissouma is close to joining Ajax, and the news has travelled quickly across the Channel. In England, the reaction has been sharp – and it has very little to do with his first touch or his passing range.
The Mali international spent the last four years on the books at Tottenham Hotspur, a stay that never quite lived up to its early promise. Nobody in the British press is questioning his talent. They are questioning everything around it.
“That his contract was not extended at Spurs did not come as a surprise,” he wrote. The reasoning, he stressed, went beyond the knee injury that disrupted his final season. The real concern lay in the “various problems he had off the pitch”.
Those problems became impossible to ignore. Johnson recalled how then-manager Thomas Frank eventually dropped Bissouma from the squad after repeated lateness, citing a “lack of discipline”. The decision was not taken in a vacuum.
talkSPORT went further, tying that disciplinary call directly to a social media video in which Bissouma was seen using nitrous oxide. Even after that suspension, he was reportedly filmed a second time with a nitrous oxide balloon. The footage, and the questions it raised, never really went away.
The Mirror added another layer to the story. Bissouma, it reported, later spoke about a burglary at his home and the impact it had on his mental health. He described the incident as traumatic and said it triggered anxiety, panic, depression and paranoia. That, he explained, was how he ended up turning to nitrous oxide.
The context is serious. The sympathy is real. The doubt, though, remains.
British outlets are almost unanimous on one point: Ajax are taking on a risk. The Sun delivered it as a warning. “Ajax will have to keep a closer eye on Bissouma than their predecessors did, in order to prevent a repeat of that situation,” the paper wrote. The message is clear – the Amsterdam club must manage the person as carefully as they plan to use the player.
Media Reactions
In the Netherlands, the scepticism has already found a loud platform. On Monday evening, Valentijn Driessen spoke on Vandaag Inside and made his stance brutally clear. He mocked the idea of Bissouma as a safe bet, describing him as “some Malian who is more into nitrous oxide than he is present at training. Nitrous oxide for recreational use, and for a footballer at that!”
Driessen then turned his fire on Ajax’s decision-makers. He pointed to Jordi Cruyff’s reported reluctance to sign Noa Lang because he was seen as a “difficult footballer”, and contrasted that with the move for Bissouma. “If you bring this one in… then you really are bringing in trouble,” he said.
So Ajax stand at a crossroads: a high-ceiling midfielder with a Premier League pedigree, wrapped in a dossier of off-field concerns and media scrutiny that will follow him into De Toekomst and beyond.
For now, the deal edges closer. Bissouma is reportedly in Amsterdam for his medical. Once he passes that, he is expected to sign a contract running until mid-2027, with an option for a further year.
Ajax know exactly what they are getting. The question is whether they can handle everything that comes with him.
