The heart-wrenching reason new Birghton signing Joel Veltman will wear number 34 shirt

Brighton signed the Dutch international defender on three-year deal, with the Seagulls reportedly completing the deal by triggering a release clause in his contract, paying Ajax just over £900,000.

Veltman made his Ajax debut in 2012 and has been with the club for 19 years, having come through the club's academy system, making over 200 appearances for the Dutch giants and winning 22 caps for his country.

And Veltman has decided to to wear No 34 shirt as a tribute to former Ajax team-mate Abdelhak Nouri, who collapsed during a friendly in 2017 and went into an induced coma.

The Ajax prodigy, now 23-years-old, suffered permanent brain damage.

“I’m wearing 34 because of Appie Nouri,” Veltman said to the Brighton club website. “Everybody knows what happened that day in Austria. Besides he was an amazing player and an amazing person.

"That’s the most important thing for me and that’s why I’m wearing that number on my shirt.”

Brighton's new defender, when asked about what Nouri would have thought about his move to the Premier League, said: “He would love it, I think.

"He was a friend, besides being a team-mate. He was a friend of everybody, so everyone was loving him and still loving him of course.”

A year after the incident in June 2018, Ajax admitted that their medical treatment of Nouri was ‘inadequate’.