Eight-year-old boy signs for Ajax

Charity wants to make dream come true for sick Dutch kid. Ajax pull out all the stops to make it happen. Good show.

Tue, 17 Dec, 2013 - 11:51

Conor Hallahan

Jay-jay Willems is an eight-year-old boy from Holland.

Like many eight-year-olds, Jay-jay is footie-mad, and a huge fan of top Dutch side Ajax Amsterdam.

Also like many children all over the world, Jay-jay struggles daily with chronic illness - in his case, severe IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) that requires him to ingest large amounts of medication daily through a tube in his stomach and impacts severely on the quality of life of him and his family.

But like many kids dealt crappy hands, Jay-jay just gets on with it.

Enter Stichtung Opkikker, or 'Opkikker Foundation', a Dutch charity similar to the well-known 'Make a Wish' foundation in Ireland, which organises special days out for kids with long term illness 'so they can cope with the hard days a little better'.

The charity organised an 'Opkikker Day' for Jay-jay which was to see him being taken on a special, behind the scenes tour of Ajax' home ground, the Amsterdam ArenA.

Of course, nobody could have predicted what happened next… *giant exaggerated wink*

Chancing upon a stray ball from a training session, Jay-jay jinked past two defenders and buried it in the back of the net, catching the eye of a couple of Ajax scouts on the sideline.

In a whirlwind morning, the blonde bombshell was 'signed' (another WINK) as Ajax' latest hot-shot left winger, presented before the media in a joint press conference with boss Frank de Boer and went on to make his debut at number 9.