Despite winning their last four matches, it’s fair to say that this has been a difficult season for Ajax, as they are still a massive 14 points behind league leaders PSV Eindhoven. Furthermore, they have fared even worse in the Champions League, where they are currently third from bottom in the 36 team league stage, having lost five of their six games to date.
As a result, they sacked their head coach Johnny Heitinga, who had only returned to the club at the beginning of the season, having left his role as Liverpool’s assistant coach. He was replaced on a caretaker basis by the appropriately named Fred Grim.
The bad feeling around the club was reinforced when the match between Ajax and Groningen was abandoned in the sixth minute after supporters repeatedly set off fireworks. The board described this incident as “downright scandalous” and “unacceptable”.
League Position
The last few years have represented a steep fall from grace for Ajax, who have regularly finished top of the Eredivisie in their history.
Indeed, they won the Dutch league three times in the four seasons up to 2021/22 (the missing year was declared void due to COVID), but they have not won a trophy for the last three years. In fact, the fifth place in 2023/24 was the club’s worst finish since way back in 2000.
This is a far cry from the success enjoyed under Erik ten Hag, highlighted by Ajax being seconds away from reaching the Champions League final in 2019, before they were cruelly denied by Tottenham’s late goal.
2024/25 season
From that perspective, last season’s second place could be considered a partial recovery. As the board put it, “After two difficult years, Ajax has been on the rise in the past football season.”
However, this disguised a spectacular collapse, as Ajax had established a 9-point lead over PSV with five games remaining, before horribly losing their way in the run-in to hand their rivals the title. The club described this rather kindly as “a frantic final phase”.
This was not exactly the way that the club would have wanted to celebrate its 125th anniversary, but it did at least mean that Ajax directly qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, which is “of great importance, both sportingly and financially”.
In 2024/25 Ajax had competed in the far less lucrative Europa League, where they reached the last 16 before being eliminated by Eintracht Frankfurt. They got to the same stage in the KNVB Cup, where they were defeated by AZ.
Managerial Changes
Ajax’s plight has not been helped by the numerous managerial changes since ten Hag exited stage left in 2022, though to be fair it’s not worked out too well for him either, given his experiences at Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen.
In fact, Ajax are now on their ninth manager (including caretakers) since he left, which underlines the lack of stability in Amsterdam. This has proved very costly, both in terms of pay-offs and also constant changes in tactics and the make-up of the squad.
Former Nice manager, Franco Farioli, was handed the poisoned chalice in 2024/25, but he left by mutual consent at the end of the season, following reports of internal disagreements over tactics, transfer policy and budget constraints.
So things look fairly bleak for Ajax at the moment, but how much of this strife has been driven by the club’s finances?
This is a bit of a “chicken and egg” problem, as it’s not always clear what is the cause and what is the effect, but let’s take a look at the latest accounts for the 2024/25 season in order to try to answer that question.
Profit/(Loss) 2024/25
As the club has pointed out in the past, its financial prospects are often driven by sporting results, so the lack of success has also been reflected in the bottom line.
As a result, Ajax’s pre-tax loss significantly widened from €13m to €52m, which is the worst result in the club’s history.
As Shashi Baboeram Panday, the finance director, explained, “The result is a consequence of the past few years: not playing the Champions League and having the cost management that comes with the Champions League. As a result, there is a loss.”
The deterioration was very largely driven by much lower profit on player sales, which dropped €72m from €82m to just €10m.
Revenue actually rose €26m (17%) from €152m to €178m, while operating expenses decreased €3m (1%) from €242m to €239m and net interest payable more than halved from €6m to €3m.
After tax, the loss was smaller at €37m, due to a €14m tax credit, but this was still almost four times as much as the prior year’s €10m deficit.
As the club drily put it, the (relative) improvement on the pitch is not yet evident in all the financial results”.
Ajax’s revenue increase was reflected across the board. Match day rose €7m (12%) from €53m to €60m, which was a new club record, while broadcasting was up €9m (41%) from €23m to €32m, due to more European income.
However, the biggest growth was in commercial, which increased €10m (14%) from €76m to €86m.
The wage bill increased by €7m (7%) from €102m to €109m, but this was more than offset by a steep reduction in player amortisation, which was down €9m (18%) from €50m to €41m. Depreciation was flat at €11m, while other expenses were cut €1m (1%) to €77m.
Ajax’s €52m pre-tax loss was the highest in the Eredivisie by some distance, which is in stark contrast to 2022/23, when their €55m profit was easily the best result.
The majority of clubs in the Dutch top flight made money, including four with double digit profits, namely Feyenoord €31m, Twente €20m, AZ €14m and PSV Eindhoven €10m.
