Aberdeen Won the Scottish Cup and Grew the Wage Bill Without Any European Money

In the 2024-25 season covered by these accounts, Aberdeen finished fifth in Jimmy Thelin's first season in charge and won the Scottish Cup, beating Celtic on penalties in the final. It was the club's first Scottish Cup since 1990 and brought a place in the Europa League play-off round the following summer.

Turnover fell by around 8% to around £22m, down from a record of around £24m, because there was no European football that season. Commercial and retail income hit a new record and the cup run added ticket money, but neither could fully replace a year of UEFA income.

Staff costs rose by around 19% to around £15m, around 70% of turnover. The club backed Thelin with a bigger first-team squad and paid higher bonuses for winning the cup. That is the trade-off Aberdeen chose: spend now, and let the trophy and the European place that came with it pay back later.

The pre-tax loss widened to around £2m from under £1m. It would have been much worse without player sales: Bojan Miovski's move to Girona, Duk's to Leganes and Connor Barron's tribunal fee from Rangers brought a net gain of around £5m. Cash stood at around £9m and net assets at around £25m.