The Political Economy of Football V2

Ajax supporters could probably find some choice words to describe the club’s 2023/24 season, though the board opted for “disappointing” in the recently published annual report. This was completely understandable, given that Ajax slumped to fifth place in the Eredivisie, while “another sporting low point” came when they crashed out to amateur club USV Hercules in the second round of the KNVB Cup. Despite only competing in the Europa League, they still failed to get out of the group, thus dropping down to the Conference League, where they were eliminated by Aston Villa in the last 16. As the club pointed out, financial prospects are often driven by sporting results, so the lack of success last season has also been reflected in the bottom line.   As a result, Ajax went from an impressive €55m pre-tax profit to a €13m loss in 2023/24, a massive €68m deterioration. This was largely due to revenue falling by €44m (23%) from €196m to €152m, while profit from player sales decreased b...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews the 2020/21 accounts of Ajax.  Their pre-tax loss widened from €12m to €32m (€24m after tax), despite revenue rising €64m (51%) from €125m to €189m, as profit from player sales fell €48m from €86m to €38m and operating expenses increased €35m (16%). The €32m pre-tax loss is the highest in the Netherlands, even though the most recent accounts for other clubs cover the 2020/21 season, which included a full year of COVID. In 2019/20 (pre-pandemic) no fewer than 11 of the 18 Eredivisie clubs were profitable. Ajax normally run a sustainable business model, but they have posted losses amounting to €43m in the past two years, driven by the pandemic. In the previous eight years, they had accumulated nearly a quarter of a billion Euros profit, averaging €30m a season. In fairness, Ajax have done much better than other leading European clubs during the pandemic, reporting an aggregate pre-tax €15m profit for 2019/20 and 2020/21, which was signific...