Hoofddorp’s international baseball plans flop, cost €12.3m

Photo: Depositphotos.com
Photo: Depositphotos.com

America’s Major League Baseball organisation never formally agreed to play games from its own competition in the Dutch town of Hoofddorp but the town council pressed ahead with a €12.3m investment in building a professional baseball court anyway, the Volkskrant says on Monday.

Hoofddorp, the service town close to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, had been hoping to stage Major League Baseball in 2015 but no games took place. None are on the schedule for the new season either, the Volkskrant says.

The Netherlands is the most successful baseball country in Europe and, when the Hoofddorp club Pioniers needed a new stadium in 2008, efforts were made to attract the eye of the Americans.

This included the import of 300 tonnes of American clay for the pitch and special lighting at a cost of €400,000. An additional €600,000 was spent on two bid books for the MLB games.

Ambition

‘The MLB wants to move into Europe,’ Maarten Broersen, chairman of the foundation running the stadium, told broadcaster Nos two years ago. ‘The three matches they will play here are the opener for that ambition.’

But no games have been played and now the Volkskrant says there was never a formal commitment to play any.

‘It is as if you build an Olympic village without knowing if you can organise the games,’ Johan Rip, local councillor for the independent HAP party, told the paper.

The town council has launched an investigation into the project and the resulting financial problems, the Volkskrant says.

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