Last weekend, Dinamo published its annual financial report ahead of the derby against Hajduk. As all eyes were on Poljud, this news went under the radar – but the figures are interesting, even historical, reports Gol.hr.
Namely, for the first time, Dinamo’s expenses broke through 60 million euros; more precisely, they reached 62.4 million euros (472,631,751 kuna).
Revenues amounted to 478,998,976 kuna, so Dinamo in 2021 ended up with a surplus of around 6.3 million kuna.
These figures are spectacular for Croatian conditions. While the revenues are not record-breaking, they are not far from the record.
Dinamo earned more in 2016, or 492,723,273 kuna, but only 389,075,780 kuna was spent. In principle, this is the only year in which a larger amount was saved, but even those hundred million kuna “surplus” went to waste the following year, when the minus was 113 million kuna.
In 2020, the revenues of the Maksimir Club amounted to 381,940,537 kuna and expenditures to 379,132,303 kuna. However, in April of the same year, the pandemic resulted in the termination of cooperation with Nenad Bjelica and a reduction in the salaries of Dinamo players. The reason given was savings due to financial problems caused by the pandemic. Then, the policy of permanent cost-cutting was announced.
However, in the end, it turned out that Dinamo spent about 13 million kuna more in that year than the previous one when there was no pandemic. That information was published at an Assembly without the presence of the media.
It is pretty clear that Dinamo earned a hundred million kuna more than the previous year, made several lucrative transfers, and went far in the Europa League. Still, it is unclear how there was such a sharp turn and change of course in light of the announced cost-cutting policy.
Most of the increase in spending went to players’ salaries and the working community. About 35 million more was spent on this segment than the previous year.
The total amount to salaries is 300,780,887 kuna or about 40 million euros. If we assume that most of the amount goes to the player’s wages, at least three quarters, including both the first and second team players on payroll, it turns out that the average is more than half a million euros a year per player.
Since it is easy to assume that most go to the first team from the cost of players’ salaries, it can be concluded that the average is well over half a million euros per player. Gol.hr reveals that their sources say that the highest-paid is Mislav Oršić, who has a salary of one million euros net per year according to the new contract.
Premiums and bonuses need to be added. When everything is added up, Oršić does not earn significantly less in Dinamo than he would earn in Burnley, which wanted to bring him in the last winter transfer window. According to Gol’s sources, he would have a salary of around 1.3 million euros at that English club.
It turns out that the smallest part of Dinamo’s expenses goes to compensation for reinforcements. Dinamo has spent 5.4 million euros on incoming transfers from July 1, which is when transfers for this season are calculated. Last season, until June 30, 2021, Dinamo spent 12.4 million euros on new reinforcements.
It will be interesting to see last year’s financial reports for the remaining top members of Croatian football. Dinamo regularly had a bigger budget than Osijek, Hajduk, and Rijeka combined in previous years.
For example, in 2020, Osijek had total expenditures of around 115 million kuna, of which about 40 million kuna went to players’ salaries.
To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.
