Eredivisie

Lore & Background

From the foundation of the Dutch national football championship in 1898 until 1954, the title was decided through play-offs by a handful of clubs who had previously won their regional league. The competition was purely an amateur one; the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) rejected any form of payment and suspended players who were caught receiving salary or transfer fees. The call for professional football grew in the early fifties after many national team members left to play abroad in search for financial benefits. The KNVB would usually suspend these players, preventing them from appearing for the Dutch national team. After the North Sea flood of 1953, the Dutch players abroad (mainly playing in the French league) organised a charity match against the France national team in Paris. The match was boycotted by the KNVB, but after the assembled Dutch players defeated the French (2–1), the Dutch public witnessed the heights that could be achieved through professional football. To serve the growing interest, a dissident professional football association (the NBVB) and league were founded for the 1954–55 season. On 3 July 1954, the KNVB met with a group of concerned amateur club chairmen, who feared the best players would join the professional teams. The meeting, dubbed the slaapkamerconferentie ('bedroom conference'), led to the Association reluctantly accepting semi-professionalism. Meanwhile, both the KNVB and the NBVB started their separate competition. The first professional football match was contested between Alkmaar and Venlo. The leagues went on for eleven rounds, before a merger was negotiated between the two federations in November. Both leagues were cancelled and a new, combined competition emerged immediately. De Graafschap, Amsterdam, Alkmaar and Fortuna '54 from the NBVB were accepted to the new league. Other clubs merged, which led to new names like Rapid J.C., Holland Sport and Roda Sport. The first (semi-)professional league was won by Willem II. For the 1956–57 season, the KNVB abandoned the regional league system. The Eredivisie was founded, in which the eighteen best clubs nationwide directly played for the league title without play-offs. The inaugural members of the Eredivisie in 1956 were Ajax, BVC, BVV, DOS, EVV, Elinkwijk, SC Enschede, Feijenoord, Fortuna '54, GVAV, MVV, NAC, NOAD, PSV, Rapid J.C., Sparta, VVV '03 and Willem II. A

In Their Own Story

The rain over Amsterdam is a fine, cold mist that beads on the glass of the Johan Cruijff ArenA. Inside, the away end is a sea of white and red, the home supporters chanting in a low, rolling rhythm that you feel in your chest more than hear. The match is the 73rd minute. Ajax's young winger—that 19-year-old you've been developing in Career Mode since the summer transfer window—cuts inside from the left, drops the shoulder, and threads a pass through the channel. The striker finishes. The crowd detonates. On the broadcast overlay, the scoreboard glows, the commentary voice cracks with excitement, and for a moment the whole world is just this: a Dutch rain-soaked Tuesday, a kid who was a 72-rated prospect six months ago, and the roar of 53,000 people who have been waiting for exactly this since the 1970s.

Reader's Guide

The Eredivisie consists of 18 clubs. Each club meets every other club twice during the season, once at home and once away. At the end of each season, the two clubs at the bottom are relegated to the second level of the Dutch league system, the Eerste Divisie, while the champions and runners-up of the Eerste Divisie are automatically promoted to the Eredivisie. The club finishing third from the bottom of the Eredivisie goes to separate promotion/relegation play-offs with six high-placed clubs from the Eerste Divisie. The winner of the Eredivisie claims the Dutch national championship. Ajax have won the most titles with 36. PSV Eindhoven are next with 27, and Feyenoord follow with 16. Since 1965, these three clubs have won all but three Eredivisie titles (the 1981 and 2009 titles went to AZ and Twente won in 2010). Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord are known as the "Big Three" or "Traditional Top Three" of Dutch football. They are the only clubs in their current form to have never been relegated out of the Eredivisie. A fourth club, Utrecht, is the product of a 1970 merger between three of that city's clubs, one of which, VV DOS, had also never been relegated out of the Eredivisie.

Did You Know?

• From 1990 to 1999, the official name of the league was PTT Telecompetitie, which changed to KPN Telecompetitie in 1999 and to KPN Eredivisie in 2000.
• From 2002 to 2005, the league was called the Holland Casino Eredivisie.
• Since the 2005–06 season, the league has been sponsored by the Vriendenloterij, but for legal reasons its name could not be attached to the league until the 2025–2026 season, when it will be rebranded to VriendenLoterij
• In August 2012, it was made public that tycoon Rupert Murdoch had secured the rights to the Eredivisie for 12 years at a cost of €1 billion, beginning in the 2013–14 season.
• In 2020, the Eredivisie was abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.