Pop concerts, tourists, hit football schedules

Wednesday 09 July 2008

The Dutch football association KNVB hopes to be able to present next year's match timetable before the weekend, even though a number of scheduling difficulties still need to solved, the AD reports on Wednesday.

But director of professional football Henk Kesler says as soon as next season's schedule has been finalised, all the parties involved need to sit down and agree a number of basic rules for next year's round.

'Every mayor says he or she is glad to have a professional club but we don't see much evidence of that,' Kesler tells the paper.

For example, FC Volendam may just have won promotion to the premier division but the council has drawn up a list of 54 dates when matches cannot be played. 'They've ruled out Fridays and Saturdays because there are already a lot of tourists in town,' Kesler says.

Arnhem club Vitesse, which plays at the Gelredome stadium, has ruled out 45 out of 95 possible match dates and Arnhem city council has added another 17.

'Gelredome is [pop star] Marco Borsato and other artists' home base, not Vitesse's,' says Kesler. 'Gelredome can do what it likes, but it seems to me that Vitesse should go and play somewhere else.'

© DutchNews.nl

Comments have been closed for this article.