The club achieved promotion to the highest level of Dutch football in 1911 and had its first major success in 1917, winning the KNVB Beker, the Netherlands' national cup.

[10] Throughout the 1920s, Ajax was a strong regional power, winning the Eerste Klasse West division in 1921, 1927 and 1928, but could not maintain its success at the national level.

After Cruyff's sale to rivals Feyenoord in 1983, van Basten became Ajax's key player, top scoring in the Eredivisie for four seasons between 1983–84 and 1986–87.

[21] After the sale of Bergkamp to Internazionale in 1993, van Gaal re-signed the experienced Rijkaard to complement his young Ajax team featuring academy graduates Frank and Ronald de Boer, Edwin van der Sar, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, Michael Reiziger and Winston Bogarde, as well as mercurial foreign talents Finidi George, Nwankwo Kanu and Jari Litmanen, and veteran captain Danny Blind.

[23] The team also won its first European Cup since its 1970s era, defeating Milan in the 1995 UEFA Champions League final 1–0, with the winning goal scored by 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert.

After losing 1–2 in the first leg, they defeated Real Madrid 4–1 in the away match, stunning the defending champions in their own stadium, the Santiago Bernabéu, with an aggregate score of 5–3.

Due to mutual agreements with foreign clubs, the youth academy has also signed foreign players as teenagers before making first team debuts, such as Belgian defensive trio Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Thomas Vermaelen along with winger Tom De Mul, all of whom are full internationals, as well as Dutch international Vurnon Anita and Javier Martina, representing Curaçao.

In 1995, the year Ajax won the UEFA Champions League, the Netherlands national team was almost entirely composed of Ajax players, with van der Sar in goal; players such as Michael Reiziger, Frank de Boer and Danny Blind in defence; Ronald de Boer, Edgar Davids and Clarence Seedorf in midfield; and Patrick Kluivert and Marc Overmars in attack.

The offices are based in Nea Smyrni, Attica, with the main training facility located on the island of Corfu, hosting a total of 15 football youth academies throughout Greece and Cyprus.

In the Netherlands, the Arena earned a reputation for a terrible grass pitch caused by the removable roof that, even when open, takes away too much sunlight and fresh air.

Under manager Jack Kirwan, however, the club earned promotion to the top flight of Dutch football for the first time in 1911 (then the Eerste Klasse or 'First Class', later named the Eredivisie), Ajax was forced to change its colours because Sparta Rotterdam already had exactly the same outfit.

Special kits for away fixtures did not exist at the time and according to football association regulations the newcomers had to change their colours if two teams in the same league had identical uniforms.

Criticism was brought forth that the legal grid for a naamloze vennootschap would not be suitable for a Football club, and that the sports related ambitions would suffer from the new commercial interests of the now listed Ajax.

[42] In 2008, a Commission under guidance of honorary member Uri Coronel concluded that the IPO was of no value to the club, and that measures should be taken to exit the stock exchange by purchasing back all public shares.

[51] On 7 November 2014, it was announced that Ajax had agreed to a four-and-a-half-year contract worth €8 million annually with Dutch cable operating company Ziggo as the new shirt sponsor for the club.

[52] Having extended its contract with AEGON for half a season until December, the club featured Fonds Gehandicaptensport, a charitable fund for handicapped sports on its away shirts for a six-month period before transitioning to Ziggo in 2015.

By winning the Beloften Eredivisie title, Jong Ajax was able to qualify for the actual KNVB Cup, even advancing to the semi-finals on three occasions.

It is the amateur team of the professional club AFC Ajax, playing its home matches at the Sportpark De Toekomst training grounds to a capacity of 5,000.

[66] In 2016, Ajax launched an esports team, with Koen Weijland as the club's first signing, making its debut on the Global stage of professional gaming.

They have since signed the likes of Dani Hagebeuk, Lev Vinken, Joey Calabro and Bob van Uden, the latter spent his first season on loan to the esports team of Japanese club Sagan Tosu.

[90] Till the 1973/74-season, Ajax and Feyenoord were the only two clubs in the Netherlands who were able to clinch national titles, as well as achieve continental and even global success.

[92] The fixture is seen in the public eye as "the graceful and elegant football of Ajax, against the indomitable fighting spirit of Feyenoord"; the confidence of the capital city versus the blue collar mentality of Rotterdam.

The rivalry has existed for some time with PSV and stems from various causes, such as the different interpretations of whether current national and international successes of both clubs correlates and the supposed opposition between the Randstad and the province.

While Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff helped to innovate Total Football in the sixties and seventies, a different philosophy was honed in Eindhoven by Kees Rijvers and Guus Hiddink in the late 1970s and '80s.

[96] This in turn has created one of the more philosophical rivalries in football, an ideological battleground, which is gradually becoming as heated and intense as the matches Ajax and Feyenoord partake in.

[119] This graph displays the average attendance for home matches of Ajax from 1988 to 2018, whereby the difference in capacity of the De Meer Stadion and the Johan Cruyff Arena (est.

[121] The city of Amsterdam was historically referred to as a Mokum city, Mokum (מקום) being the Yiddish word for "place" or "safe haven",[122] and as anti-Semitic chants and name calling developed and intensified at the old De Meer Stadion from frustrated supporters of opposing clubs, Ajax fans (few of whom are Jewish)[123] responded by embracing Ajax's "Jewish" identity: calling themselves "super Jews", chanting "Jews, Jews" ("Joden, Joden") at games, and adopting Jewish symbols such as the Star of David and the Israeli flag.

[127] Before and after a UEFA Europa League game between the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax on Thursday 7 November 2024 in the Johan Cruyff Arena, tensions surrounding the Israel–Hamas war erupted into violence.

Ajax have won numerous friendly tournaments, unsanctioned by UEFA or FIFA, including the Amsterdam Tournament, Bruges Matins Trophy, Trofeo Santiago Bernabéu, Eusébio Cup, Ted Bates Trophy, Jalkapalloturnaus and Chippie Polar Cup (for a complete list, see: list of AFC Ajax honours).

Lucky Ajax participate in at least one match a year, usually in the name of charity, and commonly at football ceremonies to bid farewell to retiring players.