Alkmaar football club AZ faces severe financial problems if they do not sell players during the current winter recess, reports Monday’s Telegraaf.

AZ, last season’s premier league champions, are in financial difficulties because of the bankruptcy of its sponsor, the DSB Bank, in October.
The Alkmaar club was owned by DSB founder Dirk Scheringa who is reported to have invested €100m in the club and its new stadium.
AZ returned €5m to the bank one week before it collapsed and now has outstanding loans of €14m, says the Telegraaf. As a result of the problems at DSB, AZ has liquidity problems, according to the club’s management, the paper reports.
According to the Telegraaf, AZ has proposed to DSB’s curators that all its shares should be bought back for one €1 so that the club can continue as a foundation.
The club also wants the curators to write off half of its outstanding debt, the paper says, quoting unnamed sources.
The ‘management buy-in’ was rumoured to be on the cards some weeks ago by one of the club’s potential buyers who had the feeling that the AZ management was not really cooperating in finding outside investors, says the paper.
However the plan has little chance of succeeding, according to the Telegraaf.
In November Russian gas firm Gazprom expressed interest in buying AZ.