- Edwin van der Sar in intensive care after brain hemorrhage
- Former Manchester United goalkeeper’s stable condition
- Career highlights and personal tragedies
The 52-year-old, who retired from professional sports in 2011 after 21 years with Ajax, Fulham, and Manchester United, is reportedly in stable condition.
Edwin van der Sar, a former custodian for Manchester United, is in intensive care after sustaining a brain hemorrhage.
According to his former club, the 52-year-old, who resigned as Ajax’s CEO earlier this year, is in stable condition in the hospital.
“On Friday, Edwin van der Sar had bleeding around his brain,” the Dutch team said in a statement.
He is presently hospitalized in the intensive care unit and his condition is stable.
Once more concrete information becomes available, an update will be provided.
“Everyone at Ajax wishes Edwin a speedy recovery,” the club added. We are considering you.”
In Croatia, Van der Sar was hospitalised. He was pictured this month at an expensive rooftop restaurant on Hvar, Croatia.
Van der Sar began his professional career at Ajax, where he was a member of the “golden generation” that won the Champions League in 1995.
Later, he transferred to the Italian club Juventus, before joining the English club Fulham in 2001.
After a successful stint in West London, he moved to Manchester United in 2005 and claimed his second Champions League trophy.
He also appeared 130 times for the Dutch national team.
Van der Sar won several individual awards, including Greatest European Goalkeeper twice and UEFA Club Goalkeeper of the Year. He is regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of his generation and by some as one of the best of all time.
In 2011, he retired from football and joined the Ajax board, becoming CEO in 2016.
In May, he resigned, citing the need to “take some distance, get some rest, and do other things.”
“We have experienced wonderful things together, but it has also been an incredibly difficult time,” he said following a difficult season for the Eredivisie club, which finished 12 points behind champions Feyenoord after not finishing outside the top two in the Dutch league for 14 years.
Since 2006, Van de Sar has been married to Annemarie van Kesteren, with whom he shares two children.
Annemarie succumbed from a brain hemorrhage in December 2009, while he was playing for Manchester United.
Former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson granted compassionate leave to the custodian at the time.
