My Dutch friends in Haarlem tell me that the perennial Eerste Divisie club is no more... With the financial demise of AZ earlier in the season, and now Haarlem, what does this tell us about the state of Dutch football, especially in the north of the country. Sad indeed, the club of Ruud Gullit and Kick Smit, where football has been played since 1889 is gone...
It's sad because it's one of our oldest clubs, then again it's not sad because even they themselves admitted that it's thanks to their own bad financial management (hoping for a new stadium and not having a plan B when that fell through). Eight second division sides are currently under the financial supervision of the Dutch FA. What that means in actual practise is that from the moment they are placed under supervision, they have three years to get out of debt, and if they don't it's bye bye to them. Feyenoord has been under supervision for almost two years now and as such has little over a year to get out of debt, the situation is pretty desperate now over there. I think the other eredivisie side in similar trouble is Willem II.
and Roda of course... http://www.elfvoetbal.nl/nieuws/97371_gemeente-kerkrade-voorkomt-faillissement-roda-jc
No, Haarlem is finished. Ajax had five players on loan, all of whom have come back to the parent club. The financial crisis is not unique to Dutch clubs; there are teams with huge debts in many of the other leagues as well. As far as I've been able to figure things out, Bundesliga teams appear to generally be on the soundest financial footing.
I forgot about them! Something has to give in Brabant and Limburg, there's too many football clubs in a small area.
A football club is not allowed to be in debt for a prolonged period of time, that's the thing in both the NL and Germany. Which is why we don't get clubs over here who are consistently 200 million in debt and nobody cares, like you get in Spain and England. Haarlem was 2 million in debt. That's about 1% of Real Madrid's perennial debt probably!
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but what has ever come of the prospective merger of the Limburg Clubs? Is that ever going to happen or has it been shelved?
I just checked, and apparently there is a new fused club called Haarlem Kennemerland, but as of the writing, it was unclear what division they would play in. Not sure if the fusion actually stalled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haarlem_Kennemerland Anybody know?
fusion has not been stalled http://www.hfckennemerland.nl/ haarlem-kennemerland's 1st team will play in the eredivisie > 1e divisie > topklasse > hoofdklasse > 1e klasse > 2e klasse > .. > 7e klasse