By Mark Baber
August 7 – Industrial action by the Dutch police has led to the postponement of five Eredivisie matches at the start of the new season, the Dutch football association KNVB announced on Thursday.
Those matches postponed include the games at ADO Den Haag, Groningen, Heerenveen, Nijmegen and Zwolle which will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday instead, whilst four matches including Feyenoord-Utrecht, games at Roda JC Kerkrade, Feyenoord Rotterdam and Willem II Tilburg AZ–Ajax on Sunday, will proceed as scheduled.
A KNVB statement said: “We wish it would be different for the fans, clubs and everyone else who was looking forward to the start of the season this weekend.”
KNVB operations director Gijs de Jong declared: “We had hoped that the labour and police unions would have sat down with the government and worked out a solution. After it became clear that the police would go ahead with their actions, we spoke to the respective mayors and clubs. Our aim was for all fans to see top division action as soon as possible.”
The targeting of football matches by the unions, who are negotiating a new collective labour agreement with the government, comes as a disappointment after the police were recently persuaded to drop plans to disrupt the Tour de France as it made its way through the Netherlands.
Fans in The Hague reacted to the disruption under the rallying cry ‘No game for us? No strike for them’, organising a meeting and drink-in at the Plein at the time the game had originally been scheduled to start, which will presumably require a big police presence and ensure police will not be able to actually go on strike, despite the game against reigning champions PSV Eindhoven not going ahead.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1731714651labto1731714651ofdlr1731714651owedi1731714651sni@r1731714651ebab.1731714651kram1731714651