Ajaxtalk

Read today on Soccer International that Ajax players are on largest bonus scheme in Eredivisie for landing the title, well no chance of that this season anyway. Every player who plays more than 25 Eredivisie games in a title winning season would receive a bonus of Eur 300,000 this compares to Eur 140,000 that a PSV player would receive.

Unlike PSV and other Eredivisie clubs, Ajax do not award players a match win bonus for individual games.

I suppose that at least the club has got this side right - no bonuses unless you can win the Eredivisie, although as said before probably too many already too highly paid at the club.

SPL schreef:Yes I read in an english mag the F word were over 30m in the red.

I only mentioned us because we reported a 9m loss on the last six months but that is not the same as being in a hugh debt.

May as well move this to the right topic.

Having debt is not a bad thing, I mean we all probably have hugh mortgages on our homes. The problem arises when you cannot afford to repay that debt.

Ajax at the moment to me are in a worse position in that they have major liquidity problems - ie not enough cash to meet current financial requirements. According to AT5 the Amsterdam news channel, Ajax are having to borrow money from the bank to meet its current liabilities. Basically, they are now having to take a loan from the bank to pay players wages, pay Government taxes due and whatever other outstanding monies they owe.

If this is true its and I see no reason to believe its not the situation considering we could not afford to buy Khalid Boulahrouz and Braafheid wouldnt come to Amsterdam on loan because Ajax wouldnt stump up part of his salary, then there are going to be very tough times ahead. Those players looking to renegotiate contracts should not go looking for improved terms as they will not be offered.

2nd place in the Eredivisie and subsequent qualification for the Champions League are now a must if we want to strengthen our financial situation in the future. Either that or we are going to have to sell our best players like Suarez etc. Getting rid of the unwanted players will also happen as this will help stem the outflow of cash but if we are to borrow now then the bank will probably insist on selling players to raise cash too.

All in all not a good situation and will inevitibaly lead to an increase once again in season ticket prices.

I would not be too confident in seeing many additions to our squad either unless Suarez goes and Jol is given some of the transfer fee for new buys.

It looks like the Van Basten era of wasting money on players and contracts given has really come back to haunt the club.

jamcocteau schreef:If this is true its and I see no reason to believe its not

Of course it's true, Ajax wrote this in his half-year report (and I think it was already announced in the annual report of last season).

The list of salaries we pay to our players ,as shown on the dutch speaking site recently, was an eye opener. We are paying far too much for a lot of players who are not good enough .

As for not giving improved contracts well the likes of Enoh and the younger ones on less than a million euros per year will get rises but as has already happened Urby ,on 1.5m has not been offered an increase .

Not getting into the CL is our big problem . When we were qualifying we could justify the big salaries but now we are not we cannot justify them.

If we fail to finish second this season money will be tight for another year as several of the big earners have contracts to 2011 and I don't see many clubs taking them on . Suarez will likely be sold for about 30m which will help a great deal . His fee must be spent a lot wiser when bringing in new players.

It's mentioned at the top of the page that Ajax has a fairly attractive bonus scheme for its players should they win the title. I don't see why they couldn't do a similar thing for CL qualification. So if a player wants an improved deal simply insert a clause in their contract that they get a raise when they play CL.

More reasons why we may be forced to start a side that comes primarily from the youth academy next year.

And even if we finish third with a bunch of youth products I won't be terribly disappointed.

Ajax €25m in debt but don’t have to sell players

Widespread reports in Holland have confirmed that Eredivisie giants Ajax are facing up to major debt problems.

By the end of this season Ajax are expected to be 25 million euros in debt but the club are denying that they will have to sell players to survive.
Ajax’s financial director Jeroen Slop said that the club do not need to sell players and "could afford to reject a 15 million euro offer for Luis Suarez." The financial problems at Ajax will though mean the club are unlikely to increase wages for players at the club as Urby Emanuelson is finding out now (From http://www.imscouting.com).

Ajax are not 25 million 'in debt'.

They will lose 25 million euros this season, but the club have what we call an 'own capital' of somewhere between 50 and 60 million euros.

There is definitely a financial problem, because Ajax have been spending more than they're making on a structural basis for the past five years. That must change. But the club are not in financial danger or anything like that. It's a completely different story than Feyenoord, who have been losing even more money than Ajax and have a negative 'own capital' (minus 30 million or something like that).

K.

25 M€ is a very small amount of debt compared to many Premier League clubs.

The euros earned from making the CL voorronde won't hurt the bottom line.

Blind3 schreef:The euros earned from making the CL voorronde won't hurt the bottom line.

I've been wondering about that. Isn't the pool of money from making the voorronde pretty small? How much is it in comparison to the group stage? Any ideas?

aveslacker schreef:I've been wondering about that. Isn't the pool of money from making the voorronde pretty small? How much is it in comparison to the group stage? Any ideas?

According to De Telegraaf in an article yesterday, Ajax will get 2.1 Million for finishing second and getting to the preliminary CL round. It goes up to 13.1 Million for making the group stage.

gordonvandekamp schreef:

aveslacker schreef:I've been wondering about that. Isn't the pool of money from making the voorronde pretty small? How much is it in comparison to the group stage? Any ideas?

According to De Telegraaf in an article yesterday, Ajax will get 2.1 Million for finishing second and getting to the preliminary CL round. It goes up to 13.1 Million for making the group stage.

Thanks for that. I think we can make the group stage.

I think we can make the group stage.

The road to groupstage will be very hard. The dutch team (Twente, i guess ) will have to play 2 rounds of play-offs. The first one against 2-nd placed team from Romania, Portugal, Scotland, Belgium or Switzerland. And the second against 4-th placed teams from England, Spain or Italy, or the 3-rd placed from France or Germany. This is going to be very tough, close-edged and tricky, so let's become champs.

The club, if smart, will not count on any CL football income to balance the books! This is a recipe for disaster; just look at where Leeds United is these days. Keep up the work at trimming away all the unwanted players so their salaries are no longer a drain on club finances.

I did not know we had to play 2 qualifying rounds. Playing someone like Man City or Spurs or Ac Milan will not be easy . Well I do not think we will be favourites thats for sure !!

SPL schreef:I did not know we had to play 2 qualifying rounds. Playing someone like Man City or Spurs or Ac Milan will not be easy . Well I do not think we will be favourites thats for sure !!

I wonder if this is a result of the recent lack of success (other than the PSV run four years ago) of Dutch teams in the CL?

Orange14 schreef:

SPL schreef:I did not know we had to play 2 qualifying rounds. Playing someone like Man City or Spurs or Ac Milan will not be easy . Well I do not think we will be favourites thats for sure !!

I wonder if this is a result of the recent lack of success (other than the PSV run four years ago) of Dutch teams in the CL?

Yep that's related to the results.

The Dutch papers are awash with stories of Ajax preliminary financial results for year ended 30 June 2010. It appears that loss for the year is expected to be in region of Eur 21m, so not as high as the Eur 25m predicted a few months back.

In addition, the club did not extend borrowing facilities with the bank over the last few months as was originally reported.

These are only preliminary reports and full audited results expected to appear in October.

jamcocteau schreef:The Dutch papers are awash with stories of Ajax preliminary financial results for year ended 30 June 2010. It appears that loss for the year is expected to be in region of Eur 21m, so not as high as the Eur 25m predicted a few months back.

In addition, the club did not extend borrowing facilities with the bank over the last few months as was originally reported.

These are only preliminary reports and full audited results expected to appear in October.

If this holds for the full audit it's not bad news at all. I suspect it still means we cannot enter the transfer market without selling one of the major players we have but it also doesn't force a sale either. It still will be good if the club can get some of the excess players off the payroll but that will be hard given their quality and the current economic situation in football generally.

Somewhat interesting article on Ajax's finances.

article

Frans schreef:Somewhat interesting article on Ajax's finances.

article

Pretty much what most of us have been saying. Cut back on the first team players and move the youth up with all due speed according to their ability. I think this is where van den Boog wants the club to go and we'll see if that ends up the reality. The only quibble I have is the slighting of Kluivert when he left Ajax. He had some stellar years with Barca and it was life style choices and injuries that curtailed his career.

New Ajax sponsor: Gazprom, huge Russian gas company.

A delegation visited the ArenA and watched the Real Madrid game from their own 'sky box' (executives lounge, or whatever you want to call it).

Ajax.nl did a report on it.

So, who gives a f*ck?

I just thought I'd share this with you, because the Gazprom delegation featured some particularly hot Russian babes...

Enjoy, folks.

K.

Financials are out for the last fiscal year and the club showed a profit: http://www.ajax.nl/Nieuws/Nieuwsarchief ... fers-2.htm though a fair amount of the income was from the CL campaign. Since the year closed at the end of June, it does not include any transfer money the club received during the summer. It looks like they are getting the expense line under control and the profit will be banked as reserves rather than distributed as a dividend to the shareholders.

Kowalczyk schreef: I just thought I'd share this with you, because the Gazprom delegation featured some particularly hot Russian babes...

The only Russian babe there I'd like to do anything with is clearly under-aged.
I'm going for confession now.

Thanks "K"

2013-2014 is the last year for the Aegon sponsorship. Anybody else seeing Gazprom??