Former FC Cincinnati general manager Gerard Nijkamp has returned to a post at a top-flight club in a major European league, but he's got a relegation scrap on his hands at the outset of his tenure.
Nijkamp on Friday was confirmed as the technical director of Sparta Rotterdam of the Netherlands' top-flight Eredivisie.
Multiple outlets, along with Sparta Rotterdam's verified Twitter account, confirmed the appointment Friday. The job marks Nijkamp's first public-facing role in soccer since he departed FC Cincinnati in August.
Nijkamp's contract reportedly runs through mid-season 2024.
Right out of the gate, Nijkamp will have to labor to avoid seeing Rotterdam relegated.
The club, which was eliminated in the second round of the KNVB Dutch Cup by Vitesse on Wednesday, sits in 17th place in the 18-team first division. That means Rotterdam (2-9-5, 11 points) is in one of the league's automatic relegation positions in the standings, and is three points back of safety from relegation.
The only club behind Rotterdam in the standings is Nijkamp's beloved PEC Zwolle, which employed him as technical director prior to his journey abroad to be FC Cincinnati's GM.
Rotterdam is managed by Henk Fraser, the Suriname-born Dutch international.
The club plays in an 11,000-seater stadium – Sparta Stadion.
Keeping Rotterdam out of the so-called "relegation zone" isn't beyond Nijkamp's capabilities, of course. Through player development and wise acquisitions, Nijkamp saw PEC Zwolle – a minnow of a club compared to some of its peers in the Netherlands – promoted and kept afloat in the top flight.
Nijkamp, along with former FC Cincinnati head coach Ron Jans, also oversaw Zwolle's famous triumph in the Dutch Cup competition in 2014.
Nijkamp departed FC Cincinnati in August with the club stuck on a 3-6-7 start to the 2021 season, which ended as arguably the worst in FCC's own top-flight adventure in Major League Soccer.
Publicly, the separation of FC Cincinnati and Nijkamp was characterized by the club as a mutual parting of ways. The club also had complimentary remarks of Nijkamp as he departed.
Nijkamp's job in Cincinnati was not an easy one. He inherited a disjointed team midseason in 2019. By the time he was appointed to serve as GM in May, the club's inaugural MLS campaign was already slipping away in terms of results and position in the standings.
In 2020, Nijkamp was also forced to hire a head coach and conduct personnel decisions in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which at the time halted MLS matches for more than three months and caused disruption to the personnel marketplace domestically and abroad.
For all his labors, FC Cincinnati's first team still failed to live up to expectations, or even improve in a meaningful ways, as the 2020 and 2021 seasons in MLS ended as the club's first did in 2019 – in last place in the league.
Upon leaving, FC Cincinnati President Jeff Berding expresed gratitude for Nijkamp's work in other areas of the organization.
"I would like to thank Gerard for his commitment and dedication to FC Cincinnati. Gerard has been a key part of our development: Opening TQL Stadium, launching our academy, improving our roster and building an infrastructure that positions us for success in the future," Berding said. "We sincerely appreciate Gerard's efforts over the past two years and respect his decision to return to Europe where he can be closer to his family. We wish him and his family the best of luck moving forward."
Nijkamp's departure gave way to a hiring process that produced Chris Albright as FC Cincinnati new GM as of October, and the Albright regime is already busying itself ahead of the 2022 season.
Albright on Tuesday unveiled Pat Noonan as the club's new head coach.
On Thursday, the club introduced Alec Kann, a goalkeeper that should compete to be the starter in 2022.
Source also confirmed to The Enquirer that FC Cincinnati was nearing a deal to bring Alvas Powell back to to the club after he was signed by Albright in the summer at Philadelphia Union and went on to be a key player for Philadelphia in the MLS Cup playoffs.
