‘My club’ is one of Ajax’s most famous songs, but the makers do not see that success reflected in their bank account

When Kees Prins stares from the stage at a packed Museumplein on 16 May 2019, he sees a frenzied crowd of fans. People everywhere, as far as he can see. Ajax has become national champion and is celebrating. Prince sings the song written by him ‘My club’, which has been an unofficial club song for years. More than 100,000 fans and the entire selection with the stars Frenkie de Jong, Hakim Ziyech and Matthijs de Ligt sing along loudly.

What the supporters do not know is that Prince and composer Vincent van Warmerdam have been involved in a battle for years with Ajax and interest group BumaStemra about a reasonable fee for their song. Van Warmerdam: “We are treated like a second-rate combo at a company party.”

Song of honor

The former diamond factory on Anjeliersstraat in Amsterdam was a creative breeding ground in the 1990s. Cabaret group Jiskefet, consisting of the trio Kees Prins, Herman Koch and Michiel Romeyn, has its home here. Musician Vincent van Warmerdam, descendant of a creative and socialist family, develops music for theater group Orkater and numerous films in his studio on the roof. Jiskefet caused a furore on TV with sketches such as De Dierenwinkel and gained great fame with series such as Debiteuren Crediteuren (“Good morning”) and De lullo’s (“Have you fucked yet?”).

On a summer day in 1997, Prins knocks on Van Warmerdam’s door. He has written a football song about unconditional club love for a sketch in a skybox. Whether Van Warmerdam can make music for it. “It must be a mix of ‘We are the champions’ and André Hazes,” says Prins. Van Warmerdam immediately understands the assignment.

Prins is enthusiastic when the composer lets him hear the result a week later. In June 1997 Prince sings the song as one of his alter egos in an episode of Jiskefet, as an ode to Bep van Mokum. A parody of a fat, brash football manager, played by Michiel Romeyn. The episode is well received.

A few years later, ‘My club’ turns up in an unknown way in Ajax circles, where it grows into an anthem. It sounds like open days immediately after every home match in the Arena, at ceremonies and other occasions.

Lingering affair

Van Warmerdam, also an Ajax fan, is proud, just like Prins, that their number is being copied like this. But he hardly sees anything of the success in his bank account. He can’t buy a sausage in the Arena yet. That is why at the beginning of 2009 he already contacted BumaStemra, the organization that represents the interests of musicians. In vain. Van Warmerdam is sent from pillar to post.

It is the beginning of years of wrangling for financial compensation, according to e-mails and other documents NRC saw. BumaStemra considers the song as ‘background music’, a category for which there is a minimal fee. But for the fans and the makers, the song is an inseparable part of the competition. Just like ‘Blood, sweat and tears’ and ‘Three little birds’ by Bob Marley, it has a permanent place in the program. Hazes sounds before the start of every home game, Marley at halftime and after the final whistle the legion sings along with ‘My club’.

We are treated like a second rate combo at a company party

Van Warmerdam calls, sends e-mails (“Together it doesn’t yield more than a few paltry euros at a time”) and during those years he visited BumaStemra with Prins. But it leads to nothing. “Patience is a virtue,” he emailed Prince in July 2015 when another attempt failed.

Prins supports Van Warmerdam in his struggle for financial recognition, but makes little contribution himself. He does regularly sing the song live at honors, home games against top clubs and at the funeral of club icon Bobby Haarms. At the club, everyone runs away with him. Prins is a real Ajax player. He cherishes his bond with the club, with which he also travels to major away games. Van Warmerdam, meanwhile, is getting annoyed. Making a little nice decoration, while fighting against the unjust treatment by the club of millions.

A specialized lawyer has already figured out for the duo that they use a different calculation method in England. This takes into account the importance of a number in the program and the number of spectators. That method would be much more beneficial for the makers of ‘My club’.

In August 2016, things seem to be moving forward. BumaStemra has drawn up a regulation for all professional clubs whereby the fixed numbers in the programming of a match must be regarded as ‘foreground music’. The duo may then divide more than ninety euros every home game. “With the football season starting next week, Buma now wants to arrange this quickly,” an employee emailed Van Warmerdam on August 1, 2016.

But Ajax is opposed. They reject the proposal, just like Feyenoord. “This affair is starting to drag on,” Van Warmerdam emails his contact at BumaStemra, again “also on behalf of Kees Prins”. He doesn’t get a response.

Monopoly

On paper, BumaStemra has a simple task: collect money from radio and television stations, catering companies and other music users to distribute it among the affiliated composers, writers and publishers. Every year, the organization distributes more than 200 million euros among its members. They don’t have much choice though. When BumaStemra was founded in 1913, it received a monopoly from the government.

But the copyright organization is regularly discredited, precisely because of that monopoly. According to some members, it causes laziness. A frequently heard complaint: BumaStemra’s policy is unclear and arbitrary, the administration is chaotic and while the top receives generous salaries, members wonder where their money is.

That is how composer Maarten Hartveldt started a business after he had composed music especially for Efteling which was used throughout the theme park. A generous pension payment, a BumaStemra employee had sworn to him. The first settlement in 2006: 198 euros.

Not until 2020 the court determined in Amsterdam that BumaStemra had indeed systematically paid him too little money for the use of his music. According to the court, the monopolist had failed. In the end, according to insiders, the composer reached a settlement for an amount with four zeros.

Linkmiechels

At the end of 2018, there is still no progress in the case of Prins and Van Warmerdam. The two therefore arrange an appointment with Ajax in November, in an attempt to arrange something with the club itself. The two makers are willing to sell their song to Ajax, so that the club can use and exploit it without restriction.

Van Warmerdam pulls the cart. He thinks of an amount of two hundred thousand euros, but that is negotiable. During the consultation in the Arena with a few lawyers, technical director Marc Overmars comes by to say hello. “Take good care of these guys,” he says to the club’s lawyers while he briefly puts his hand on Van Warmerdam’s shoulder. A hopeful signal, he thinks.

Yet it does not come to that. Ajax is willing to pay something for the ‘club song’, but not too much. According to BumaStemra, it therefore also torpedoes a new compensation scheme in those months. Too expensive. Ajax, in turn, points to the copyright organization as an obstacle to a proposal they made.

Van Warmerdam is empty-handed. “Will we ever experience it again?”, he emails BumaStemra in March 2019.

Exactly two months later, Kees Prins takes the stage on Museumplein after Ajax’s 34th national title: “This is my club, my ideal.”

It will take until the end of 2021 for a new arrangement to be introduced: the rate ‘Top sport competition days’, which is financially much less attractive for artists. In March 2023, Van Warmerdam will receive a first settlement based on that agreement. He opens the letter from BumaStemra and stares at the amount: 325.33 euros. This is it. The scheme, which has been fought for fifteen years, yields him and Prins jointly 34 euros per match. Only a third of the amount from the scheme that Ajax and Feyenoord previously fired.

There is one stroke of luck: the agreement will apply retroactively, from 2010. They will receive nothing for the use of their song in the less than ten years before that.

Van Warmerdam feels anger. BumaStemra has been bluffed by Ajax, he thinks. He thinks of what his socialist father used to say about big business: “You bunch of retards!”

After asking from NRC BumaStemra releases the commercial director, the lawyer and a substantive employee to explain the policy. It concerns, they emphasize, a “relatively limited group” of members who are dissatisfied with their services. The interest of an individual sometimes clashes with that of the collective, the commercial director acknowledges. And then an individual member has two tastes: “They call a lawyer or they look for the press.” He does acknowledge, however, that his organization has “not always dealt with problems firmly”. “We should have acted more energetically,” he says about the lingering case with Van Warmerdam.

When NRC Kees Prins calls, he reacts defensively. Three days later there is another telephone contact. He says he has no desire to be part of the “quest” of Van Warmerdam, with whom he made the successful song in 1997. He won’t say why. When asked whether he receives financial or material compensation from Ajax for the times he sings ‘My club’, he says: “I won’t say anything about that either.”

Ajax has stated in a written response that Prins has never been paid for the live performances. However, he has received season tickets in the past as a relationship of the club. The spokesman for the club does not know why Van Warmerdam has never received anything from Ajax.