The Johan Cruyff Foundation has gone to court to have a biography of the Dutch football legend withdrawn from sale.

The new biography of Cruijff, who died in 2016, claims that the foundation paid its founder €1m a year for the right to use his name and image to promote itself. Biographer Auke Kok bases his claim on three different sources, he told television chat show De Wereld Draait Door on Thursday.

The foundation itself said it is shocked by the claim. ‘The Cruyff Foundation is always completely transparent about its income and expenditure,’ the foundation said on its website. ‘All the income is used for its mission to get children moving.’

‘If Kok had bothered to contact the foundation we could have given him the true facts,’ the website said.

Kok, however, told the television chat show that Cruijff’s widow and children, and the foundation itself, did not want to cooperate with the biography because they were producing their own books about him.

The court case will be heard on Friday afternoon.