Jan Slagter doesn’t think he will suffer any consequences from his public feud with Özcan ‘Eus’ Akyol. “There won’t be any investigation at all,” the Omroep MAX boss said on Tuesday in the program De Oranjezomer.
Slagter had a conversation with Gerard Dielessen from the supervisory board. “Gerard said we’re going to reflect,” said Slagter. The fact that an investigation is being discussed in various media is therefore not correct, according to him. “That’s all lies.” According to Slagter, the feud with Akyol has also been blown up in the media.
Slagter has still not had contact with Akyol, but his fellow director Nicolette de Wolf has. Slagter previously said that he does not talk to Akyol. “That can be inconvenient,” said the broadcasting director. “But I don’t feel the need to do so at the moment.”
The broadcasting director said he was “putting on the sackcloth” for what happened and that the matter was “very upsetting” to him. A hundred people are said to have canceled their membership with Omroep MAX because of the affair, says Slagter. According to him, they will receive a personal “note.” “In it I explain what happened, what I did wrong,” said the broadcasting director. “I also think I should do that personally.”
The feud between Slagter and Akyol began when the broadcasting director said in Shownieuws that he does not want to extend the contract with the presenter. The reason is an interview with Akyol in Zomergasten, in which he was asked about his statements from a year and a half ago about a video of alleged verbally transgressive behavior by Matthijs van Nieuwkerk. People doubt whether the video really exists.
When Zomergasten presenter Griet Op de Beeck asked Akyol about it, the presenter answered evasively. Slagter believes that Akyol should have apologized to Van Nieuwkerk.
Slagter also had brief contact with Van Nieuwkerk. “We discussed it very lightly because there was no commotion at all at the time,” said Slagter. “I have the idea from Matthijs that he doesn’t want to talk about it at all.”