Abdelhak Nouri: Ajax cancel contract days after player wakes from coma

Moroccan suffered brain damage while playing for the Dutch club in a pre-season friendly in 2017

Abdelhak Nouri suffered permanent brain damage after a heart attack in a 2017 pre-season friendly (Getty)

Ajax have cancelled the contract of Abdelhak Nouri, who suffered serious and permanent brain damage after a heart attack playing for the Dutch club in a pre-season friendly in mid-2017.

Ajax have continued to pay his salary but have now formally cancelled the contract, which was due to automatically renew on 1 July, the Dutch media reported on Tuesday.

The club are in talks with Nouri’s family about a future solution for the player, who has been moved to a specially adapted room at his home after years in hospital, De Telegraaf added.

There has been a lengthy dispute between Ajax and Nouri’s family, who are looking for a settlement after Ajax previously admitted providing “inadequate” on-field medical treatment for Nouri after the midfielder collapsed during the pre-season friendly against German club Werder Bremen in July 2017 in Austria.

Despite being revived on the pitch and airlifted to a hospital, he suffered serious and permanent brain damage.

“We recognise our responsibility and liability for the consequences of this,” Ajax’s general manager Edwin van der Sar said in 2018.

The Dutch club said it had sought an external opinion during the incident and acted accordingly but further investigations showed that a defibrillator should have been used

Nouri, born in Amsterdam to Moroccan parents, made 15 appearances for Ajax in his debut 2016-17 season while still a teenager. He is now 22 years old.

Reuters