Guide to Eredivisie Teams
What's in a name...?
The highest division of Dutch professional football, the Eredivisie ('Division Of Honour'), found some new sponsors in the summer of 2005, including the Dutch Sponsorloterij ('Sponsor Lottery') and Amstel Beer. None of the sponsor names will return in the official name of the league, which is now simply called Eredivisie. The deal was signed after a three year deal with Holland Casinos (2002-2005) had expired. Before that the Eredivisie was sponsored by PTT Telecom (named KPN Telecom during the latter seasons of the sponsorship).
The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) first allowed sponsoring of Holland's professional football leagues in 1990. The first Eredivisie sponsor was Holland's largest mail and telecom company, PTT Telecom. The Eredivisie was affactedly named PTT Telecompetitie from 1990 onwards. In 1999 a minor name change of the sponsor (PTT Telecom became KPN Telecom) had a predictably and equally minor name change of the football league. The name KPN Telecompetitie was used for only one season. In the summer of 2000 sponsor and KNVB decided to give the Eredivisie its original name back: KPN Eredivisie was the new name, from 2000 to 2002.
The Eredivisie was established in the 1956-1957 season. Dutch football had 'gone professional' two years earlier (1954). Eredivisie was the new name for the first nationwide, professional football league in The Netherlands. Before that the First Class of Dutch football had two divisions (A and B): one for the north part of the country and one for the south part. The division champions played each other in a final for the 'over-all' Dutch championship. In 1955 the KNVB came up with a new structure for Dutch football and decided that the 1955-1956 season was going to be a qualification year for the new, nationwide Eredivisie: the top halves of both First Class divisions would pull into the new Eredivisie. Below the Eredivisie there were going to be two First Divisons (A and B) and two Second Divisions (A and B).
The Second Division of Dutch professional football disappeared in its entirety in 1971 and since the early 1980s Dutch football has two professional divisions: the Eredivisie and the First Division. When sponsoring of the leagues was first allowed in 1990, the official Dutch Football Pool (the Toto) became the sponsor of the First Division, which was named Toto Divisie for eleven years. In 2001 the Dutch Yellow Pages (Gouden Gids) took over, so that the name of the First Division changed into Gouden Gids Divisie in 2001. The current sponsor, from the summer of 2006 onwards, is Belgian lager brewery Jupiler. The second division of Dutch professional football is now called the Jupiler League.
Dutch football fans tend to ignore the names of the sponsors completely and refer to the respective leagues simply as Eredivisie and First Division.
Since the 2002 relegation of Sparta Rotterdam the traditional 'Big Three' (Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV) are the only three clubs to always have played in the Eredivisie since the start in 1956. Four of this season's First Division sides never played in the Eredivisie: Emmen, AGOVV Apeldoorn, TOP Oss and FC Omniworld. All four of those clubs are relative newcomers to professional football in The Netherlands. (MP)
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