Feyenoord posts operating plus in spite of covid-19
Feyenoord has ended the financial year 2019-2020 with a positive operating result of 0.5 million euros and turnover of more than 73 million euros in spite of the heavy impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The negative balance for transfers over the year was almost 9 million euros, which means that the club ends the financial year with a net negative result of 6.7 million euros. Shareholder equity as of 30 June 2020 was 18.6 million euros. Feyenoord is classed as a financially healthy club under the KNVB’s financial rating system (FRS).
‘The organisation has to be complemented on posting a plus for our operations despite the cancellation of the sporting season. But our loyal base deserves the credit for this. Both the fans and our business partners have given Feyenoord huge support by waiving en masse any compensation for matches that were not played. That has helped us to limit the negative financial impact of covid-19 on the financial year somewhat to 2.5 million euros. We are hugely grateful for that,’ says CFO Pieter Smorenburg.
The big minus in the transfer result is largely intentional. ‘We have deliberately kept the squad together, because we didn’t want to lose our most important and talented players,’ says Smorenburg. ‘There was a modest investment in talented young players. We hope that bringing them in and keeping hold of them will help us be successful on the pitch. Which will ultimately lead to higher revenues and higher transfer fees over the next few years.’
The club is reticent about making any statements about the current financial year 2020-2021, due to the uncertainties created by the pandemic. ‘The future is even harder than normal to predict at the moment,’ says Smorenburg. ‘But we are a flexible, bullish and healthy organisation. If we all pull together, and among other things all employees make sacrifices in terms of pay, we can get through this tough period as well as possible.’
KEY FIGURES
(in millions of euros)
2019-2020 2018-2019
Turnover 73.4 70.8
Operating charges 72.9 70.2
Operating result 0.5 0.6
Transfer result -8.8 -8.0
Interest -0.5 -0.3
Tax 2.1 1.8
Net result -6.7 -5.9