Kay-Lee de Sanders arrives with a black right eye. On this bleak, wet Sunday afternoon, Ajax just won 5-2 against FC Utrecht, at home at De Toekomst, the sports complex where both Ajax Women and youth play. The Sanders, defender, got an arm on her cheekbone. “It looks worse than it is,” she says next to the field.
The matches in the Women’s Eredivisie have a high level of conviviality. Also at De Toekomst, where “Ajax is the best” is screamed by small, giggling girls, and parents run to the only covered stand with bowls of fries during half time – when the rain really starts. Diagonally behind the Bobby Haarms stand, the Johan Cruijff Arena, usually the men’s stage, beckons.
But on Wednesday evening, Ajax Women 1 will play the first of three home games in the group stage of the Women’s Champions League, against Paris Saint-Germain, the club of Lieke Martens and Jackie Groenen. It is the first time that a Dutch team has survived the preliminary rounds, which were introduced in 2021. FC Twente also came close in October, but did not make it.
Playing in the Arena gives “a feeling of falling in love,” says De Sanders after the match against Utrecht, a week and a half ago. Ajax Women only did that once, last season in the Classic against Feyenoord. When she was seven, De Sanders was also allowed onto the field once, at Ajax – RKC, accompanied by Wesley Sneijder. “When you come there as a girl, you think: this is what I am fighting for, to be there. And eventually you reach that top and then you notice that it is more difficult because you don’t play every match in the Arena. But I am very happy that I can experience that women’s football is growing so much, and that we can show that we belong there somewhere.”
Ajax will have a tough time in the group stage of the Champions League: in addition to PSG, the team will play against Bayern Munich and AS Roma. Ajax is “the underdog,” says De Sanders. “We just go for the maximum possible.” In any case, she herself will “really enjoy it,” she says.
Also read
an interview with Sarina Wiegman
Third place ‘the max’
Analyst and former professional footballer Leonne Stentler thinks that third place for Ajax is “the max” in this group. “Ajax couldn’t have had it much tougher.” A third place like that doesn’t buy you much as a team, because there is no lower European tournament for the women.
But in any case, it is great that Ajax managed to reach the group stage, says Lucienne Reichardt, responsible for the professionalization of women’s football at the KNVB. To start with, qualifying for the last sixteen is good for Ajax itself, also financially. The club earns 400,000 euros in the group stage. That is significant: Ajax does not make any statements about the budget of the women’s branch, but it is estimated that it is between 1.5 and 2 million (for the men it is approximately 160 million euros).
But it is also good for Dutch football as a whole, says Reichardt. Due to its “visibility” within Europe, the ranking of the Dutch competition and the ‘solidarity payments’. UEFA also makes money available for clubs that: no Playing European football. The better a Dutch participant performs, the more money goes to the rest of the Eredivisie. Last year that amounted to almost 12,000 euros per club, says Reichardt. A modest amount, but still welcome in women’s football.
The KNVB is happy with it, she says. “We want to prevent the differences between the top and the rest from widening.”
Because the differences between the top – PSV, FC Twente, Ajax – and the other nine clubs in the Women’s Eredivisie are significant. Tiny Hoekstra, who switched from sc Heerenveen to Ajax in 2021, currently number two behind Twente, can talk about it. At Heerenveen she worked twenty hours a week in addition to playing football, otherwise she could not make ends meet. She trained from half past eight in the morning until twelve and then went to work. “Super heavy. But you have to.”
That applies to many other players. According to KNVB rules, only four players per club need to have a contract. And then it concerns a roughly half-time commitment, for the minimum wage. Only Ajax, Twente, PSV and Feyenoord have a collective labor agreement.
There are also other major differences between the larger and smaller clubs. When Hoekstra started, she was impressed by the facilities and coaching staff at Ajax. Such as a permanent physio and a strength trainer. “And we have our own gym, which the men and youth do not use. That sounds like a small thing, but it allows you to focus more on yourself.” In Heerenveen, training took place at an amateur association, she says. Both De Sanders and Hoekstra say: it would be good if the little ones in the Eredivisie would improve. Hoekstra: “Then we will also take steps.”
The gap with the top is big
Because, just about everyone agrees, the level of the Eredivisie must continue to rise. The gap between the Dutch and European top is large.
The vast majority of the Dutch selection of national coach Andries Jonker plays for foreign clubs. Only Ajax captain Sherida Spitse was recently selected. Many talents leave abroad early, such as Esmee Brugts (20), who switched from PSV to FC Barcelona this summer. Leonne Stentler: “If you are a Dutch talented player, then your dream is not PSV or Ajax, but Barcelona.”
Daphne Koster, women’s football manager at Ajax, also soberly noted at the beginning of this season, when goalkeeper Lize Kop left for the English Leicester City to ESPN: “We also know that we are a club where the better players are taken away.”
Stentler thinks that Dutch clubs have become even further removed from foreign competitions in recent years. “That is a bit of my personal annoyance: it was there for the taking. The women’s football world in particular was a blank slate. We have been sleeping, but foreign clubs have taken advantage of that.”
By this she means: those clubs have invested a lot of money in women’s football. Take Barcelona, says Stentler. “In 2015, Twente was still quite equal to Barcelona. But after that Barcelona just started investing well.”
It is not known exactly how much, clubs usually do not like to share that information. But it is exemplary that the club was able to sign Lieke Martens in 2017, who, according to the NOS would earn about 200,000 euros per year. Barcelona Femení now also brings in the most money of all European top clubs: almost 8 million euros in the ’21-’22 season. according to the Deloitte Football Money League.
The Spanish club won the Champions League last year. Another example: Olympique Lyonnais, six-time Champions League winner between 2015 and 2022. Twenty years ago, work was started on a women’s team, which last year had a budget of 10 million euros.
It is not surprising that a ‘rich’ men’s club such as Paris Saint-Germain can put more money into the women’s branch. But it also has to do with policy, says Stentler. With choices made at boardroom tables.
This is also argued by Anton Jansen, co-founder of Telstar Women, which returned to the Women’s Eredivisie last season. Recently he wrote an opinion piece in de Volkskrant in which he advocates more money in the women’s branches of professional football. “The question is simply: to what extent do you want to improve women’s football? Do you want to invest?,” he says NRC.
He sees England as an example. The BBC calculated last year that players in the Women’s Super League, the counterpart of the Premier League, earned an average of £47,000 a yearalthough the differences are large.
Jansen would prefer to see all players in the Eredivisie, about twenty per club, receive at least the minimum wage with a full-time contract. According to him, it would cost a total of 7.5 million euros annually. “Then you can also ask talented people to commit themselves to the sport full-time.” That’s simply not possible if you have a job on the side. Jansen sees it as “a minimum necessary investment to keep up in Europe.”
To be clear: at Telstar Women, which has to make do with an annual budget of 400,000 euros this year, this is still a utopia. There are players with a contract, but also players who only receive a small amount or even an expense allowance. “A few days ago I heard from a talented attacker that she does not want to play for us in the Eredivisie next year, because then she will have to work one day less. And we cannot compensate for that.”
Leonne Stentler has noticed recent developments in Dutch women’s football. This season, twelve clubs are participating in the Eredivisie, compared to eight four years ago. The KNVB would prefer to move to a First Division next year, says Reichardt, so that promotion and relegation become possible, although such a step now seems far away. The association also wants to further increase the requirements for clubs every year, such as the minimum number of contract players.
Jansen van Telstar also sees that sponsors are becoming increasingly interested in the Women’s Eredivisie. “Clubs that have not yet set up a women’s team are pulling their hair out,” he says. “Because women’s football is increasingly a requirement from sponsors.”
In addition, all Eredivisie matches will be broadcast live by ESPN at short notice. “That is a huge step,” says Reichardt. Ajax’s Champions League matches can be seen on NOS.
Due to the tough draw, there is a good chance that it will remain with the group matches. Ajax player Tiny Hoekstra does not want to worry too much about it. “We also discussed it with the team. A less difficult pool is also less fun, you learn less from it. This is a unique experience. We are going to play six great games.”