Legal decision could jeopardize the end of the Eredivisie season

Will the Dutch football championship, the Eredivisie, come to an end? A court decision expected on Monday could plunge Dutch football into an unprecedented crisis.

In recent weeks, a controversy over the status of dual-nationality players has been growing. Like in other countries, some players have chosen to opt for a different sporting nationality than that of their country of birth.

The problem is that this could be interpreted as renouncing Dutch citizenship. The players in question then potentially become foreigners and must have a permit to be able to play in the Netherlands.

25 Eredivisie players do not have the work permit required to play with their respective clubs. Certain criteria are necessary to obtain this permit. For example: earn an annual salary of at least 608,000 euros for those over 21.

While the situation has been more or less known for some time, a recourse filed by NAC Breda with the Dutch Football Federation, the KNVB, has caused chaos. After a heavy 6-0 defeat suffered on the field of Go Ahead Eagles on March 15, the club decided to challenge the presence on the field of Dean James, not born in the Netherlands, who chose to represent Indonesia in March 2025.

Following this, several clubs temporarily put their dual-nationality players on temporary unemployment while their status was clarified. Some, like Surinamese international Tjaronn Chery from NEC Nijmegen, received a fee from the immigration and naturalization service allowing them to play again.

The KNVB and the Eredivisie Supervisory Board (ECV) rejected NAC Breda’s request, but the club appealed and a judge from a court in Utrecht is expected to rule on Tuesday. In total, 133 matches of the Dutch championship could be affected by these disputes. Replaying them at this stage of the season would simply be impossible.