Rob Jansen, speaking on the KieftJansenEgmondGijp podcast, described the meeting at the Amstel Hotel at which Ajax had assembled a senior delegation to close a deal that would have brought the then-AC Milan midfielder to the Dutch club rather than Arsenal.
Vieira was in the building that evening. He sat in the restaurant with his wife while the negotiation took place — protocol at the time prevented him from attending the formal discussions.
Jansen was managing the talks between Ajax, Vieira's French representative and an Amsterdam law firm hired for the occasion. He noticed something about the agent immediately.
"I look at this agent and he is completely slumped back in his chair looking at me," Jansen recalled. "He picks up a beer mat, writes something on it and slides it across the table just like that."
What was written on the beer mat was the agent's personal commission demand — one million dollars — in exchange for delivering Vieira to Ajax.
Jansen said he turned to one of the Ajax delegation and suggested they step outside. The conversation in the corridor was brief.
"I asked: do you want him at Ajax? Then it costs one million dollars, for that gentleman with the long hair. He said: we don't do that at Ajax. I said: fine, then he won't come."
And he didn't. Vieira joined Arsenal instead, for a reported fee of £3.5 million, and went on to spend nine years at Highbury before leaving for Juventus in 2005. He won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups and became one of the most celebrated midfielders of his generation.
Arsène Wenger has separately confirmed that the deal was close to going the other way. He has recounted making a phone call to Vieira while the player was in Amsterdam preparing to sign for Ajax, persuading him to stop and come to London instead.
Jansen's verdict on what might have been was unambiguous.
"Imagine if Ajax had paid. He would have been one of the best players in Ajax's history."
The beer mat is not preserved. The fee that killed the deal is frozen in the record.