'You never know': Edwin Van der Sar not ruling out return to Manchester United in directorial role

Edwin Van der Sar has refused to close the door on a potential return to Manchester United in the future. The former United and Netherlands goalkeeper has overseen considerable success at Ajax as chief executive of the Dutch club, who won a league and cup double last season as well as reaching the Champions League semi-finals.

There are United fans who would like to see Van der Sar take up a similar role at Old Trafford, one currently occupied by executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward.

Van der Sar, 48, has been linked with the role of technical director at United - one they hope to fill before the end of the year - even though the corresponding position at Ajax is filled by the former Arsenal winger, Marc Overmars, and would represent a change from his current responsibilities.

Van der Sar  - who is also vice-chairman of the influential European Club Association (ECA) - said his focus for now was on Ajax and developing his own talents behind the scenes, but he would not rule out the prospect of a move to United in the future should an opportunity arise.

“You never know - at the moment, Ajax is the principle thought where I’m putting all my time and effort in,” he said. “Whatever happens in the future, we will see.”

Asked what his plans were, Van der Sar said: “I think the idea is that you have an opportunity to grow yourself and to learn. That’s what you do as a football player, as a young player. That happened when I went abroad to Italy and then when I went to England with Fulham and even at United, and it’s similar now.

“I stopped playing in 2011, did a masters degree in sports management and started as a marketing director in 2012, so you learn along the line and, of course, you take everything with you – mistakes wherever, on the commercial side, and in that way I want to develop myself and that goes perfectly with Ajax at the moment.”

United’s current goalkeeper, David De Gea, has still to put pen to paper on a new long-term deal and is out of contract at the end of the season but Van der Sar believes the club would find an adequate replacement if it came to it.

“The decision needs to come at a certain point. It’s taken a long time now, so it’s a case of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but I’m not a director of United,” Van der Sar said.

Asked if United could afford to lose De Gea, he added: “Yeah, but other goalkeepers can also fill the gap. There are a few Premier League goalkeepers playing at the club who can also take the step up. I was 34 when I went to United, so there are lots of opportunities there.”

Discussing De Gea’s loss of form during the second half of last season, Van der Sar said it was inevitable the Spaniard would have a dip at some stage. “No [it’s not a surprise], because that happened to me, it happened to [Ryan] Giggs also, to everyone. Your form differs. He [De Gea] has been for so long at such a high level, so at a certain point it gets noticed [when your form dips], maybe not the first two times, but then people start to write about it. But he’ll be fine. He’s a great goalkeeper.”

United have the youngest average starting XI this season, with manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer putting his faith in youth, but Van der Sar said Ajax’s success was proof that teams can still compete with young players.

“Yeah okay, but with young players you can also perform,” he said when asked if Solskjaer needed time. “It’s not that they [the young players] all came from the academy or something like that.

“So in that way of course you need to perform, you have ups and downs, but young players have talent, they need to show that talent on the pitch and clubs have the courage to play them and I’m sure in the long run they’re going to benefit immensely. I think we showed that last season [at Ajax] in a tremendous way and hopefully this year.

“I don’t think we can reach that far [again] because I think we lost two really quality players in Matthijs De Ligt and Frenkie De Jong but in that way we’re fighting hard to make sure we’re getting a different club into the higher echelons of European football and not coming from one of the big five countries.”