It is a symbolic milestone for Dmitri Rybolovlev, who just spent his 10th birthday last December at the head of AS Monaco, of which he has been the majority shareholder, two-thirds, since the end of 2011. The Russian businessman’s project for ASM has not always been linear. At the beginning he saw big, with the transfers of Falcao or James Rodriguez. Then the princely club returned to other ambitions, in particular centered on the trading of players.

Ten years since Dmitri Rybolovlev took over AS Monaco

Under his thumb, AS Monaco became champions in 2017 for the 8th time. Less visible, but not less, he and his teams have succeeded in doubling or even tripling the turnover of the brand, over the whole of the effective decade. Dmitri Rybolovlev completed his first balance sheet, in June 2011, with 38,391 million euros in operating income. A clarification on this subject here, it is only a question of operational revenue, without activity on the transfer market.

Revenues that have been multiplied by more than 2 or even 3 over the decade

Nine years later, it tripled, to 111,647 million euros, in the last season preceding the Covid crisis. Because the following financial year 2020, it had fallen to 62.332 million, as a result of the premature end of the championship. In detail what accelerated, between the balance sheets as of June 30, 2011 and June 30, 2019 before the crisis, audiovisual revenues were multiplied by 4, those of sponsorship by 2.5 and ticketing by 2, although at the Louis II stadium, where the lowest attendances in Ligue 1 are, revenue is marginal.

Despite the rise in income, the wage bill weighs on income

This growth, which is clearly remarkable, however hides a more fragile reality for AS Monaco, which cannot bear the costs by operating income alone. It was worse in 2020 (with less income earned during the crisis but wages maintained, at €121,095 million), but already in 2019, the wage bill weighed 132% of income. Only the transfer market therefore allows AS Monaco to balance its accounts (-€2,000 net in 2020), from one season to the next.

The evolution of turnover at AS Monaco under the governance of Dmitri Rybolovlev