There was a time when synthetic turf was almost the dominant surface in the Dutch Eredivisie, but clubs have now been given the deadline of the start of the 2025/2026 season to convert to a turf or hybrid surface if they want to play in the highest Dutch football league. What field constructions are they choosing?
At the height of the synthetic turf dominance, eight of the 18 clubs in the Eredivisie played their home games on synthetic turf. Another nine clubs in the first division had also embraced the same surface. Most of these installations were the result of a tender that had been issued by the competition organiser of the first division. “Football is a commercial business. In the UK, the clubs have one billion euros to divide that they received from selling broadcasting licences. In the Netherlands, we only generated EUR 72 million,” the then FC Volendam chairman, Wim Biesterveld, explained in 2015. “The synthetic turf allows us to rent out the stadium bowl during the summer break, and, shortly before the winter beak, we had a huge gala event in the centre circle. A natural turf surface is simply not viable for a small club like FC Volendam.” Paul Rinkens, the then chairman of MVV, said in the same article we wrote for our sister publication Sportvelden.Mag: “You have to see a stadium as a real estate project. From a business perspective, it is impossible to use that building optimally without doing so in a multifunctional way.” This includes maximising the use of the surface.
While the need for building a business case for a stadium has never been disputed, over the years, a growing number of people started to revolt against the use of synthetic turf in stadiums. They feared that it would make the Dutch competition less attractive to foreign players and that it would hamper the development of national talent. In 2018, it was decided that the surface should be phased out in professional football. In 2021, an incentive was introduced to stimulate stadiums to invest in turf or hybrid surfaces. In 2023, the league organiser ECV announced that it had been decided that, from the 2025/2026 season, synthetic turf would be banned in stadiums used for Eredivisie matches.
The search for training fields
Anno 2024, both MVV and FC Volendam are still playing on synthetic turf. Behind the scenes, they are frantically working on a business case to convert the field to either a hybrid or natural turf surface. “MVV Maastricht has the undesirable situation that it is almost the only professional football organisation in the Netherlands with only one field at its disposal,” General Manager Erik Noor explains. The stadium field is used for training sessions and games of the main team, as well as the seven academy teams. The challenge of insufficient training fields applies to most clubs that are currently still playing on synthetic turf. They now pay the price for selling off their excess fields to real estate investors when they switch to synthetic turf stadium fields. And with the population having grown drastically in the past 10 years, the quest for sufficient space to establish new training grounds elsewhere in the municipality is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Sparta Rotterdam
The establishing of a new training centre is the main challenge for all clubs, but especially for two out of the three clubs from Rotterdam. Daan Bovenberg, General Manager at Excelsior, recently revealed that they have estimated it to cost the club anywhere between five and eight million due to the rat race it has become to find available ground that can be developed. Rotterdam municipality also wants to build 55,000 houses in the coming years to accommodate the growth of the population. Sparta Rotterdam had the luck of being ahead of that curve. This allowed them to invest in a brand-new hybrid surface with a dynamic sub-surface water and oxygen injection and extraction system. “The system measures, among other things, the moisture percentage of the soil, the outside temperature, amount of precipitation and sunlight. After heavy rainfall, water is extracted from the profile, and, in dry periods, this system can be used to infiltrate from below. This enables a higher intensity of use, increases the grass quality, reduces the risk of cancellation and makes dehydration a thing of the past,” explains Rudolf Molenaar of Draintalent. The pipes are installed 35 centimetres below the surface and are also used for adding or extracting oxygen to the structure. The field is divided into three zones: one along the touchlines on each side and the centre section of the field. “Water and oxygen supply to each zone can be managed individually.” Molenaar estimates that this way of watering the soil could save the club approximately 60% water compared to a traditional irrigation system. “Draintalent recycles water, but the system at Spartais also connected to an aquifer in the earth layer where we can store excess water.” The stadium of Sparta was finished with a Grassmaster hybrid surface.
Heracles Almelo
Heracles Almelo has solved its problem for training fields by entering negotiations with a grassroots club next door. In 2003, the club in Almelo was one of six clubs UEFA selected to investigate[pms-restrict subscription_plans=”7998, 10994″]the possible use of synthetic turf in professional football. The club has played on synthetic turf ever since. This summer, it replaced the synthetic turf carpet with a 100% natural turf surface. “Together with Almelo municipality, football club CVV Oranje Nassau, and Heracles Almelo we developed a new masterplan for the stadium area. All parties involved swapped some ground which landed CVV Oranje Nassau an additional synthetic turf field and Heracles Almelo, with two hybrid training pitches,” says Rutger Schuijffel of contractor CSC Sport. The stadium field itself posed a bigger challenge. Following the adding of another ring in 2015, the current structure in no way respects the requirements for a natural turf surface. The challenging environment demanded a different approach by the contracting company. They enlisted the help of Andre Wolbrink, an agronomist at Greenfields. “We first mapped the circumstance before we really started to explore the available options.” Heracles Almelo went for a subbase with a Permavoid smart water management system. Excess water from the pitch is captured in a smart crating system in the subbase that is lined both inside as well as on top with a special water absorbing geotextile. Both textiles are connected by means of rockwool cones. The capillary action of the rockwool enables the water from the crate to humidify the geotextile on top. The system is divided into three unique separate sections, according to the shading pattern the stadium roof throws on the pitch. The system is also used at the Ethiad Stadium of Manchester City, but Heracles Almelo gained an additional feature. “Like at Manchester City, we can also play with the oxygen levels in the subbase but at Heracles Almelo, we have also made the provision to heat up the air, and, as such, use it as an alternative pitch heating system,” Ron van Raam of Permavoid points out. This functionality will be tested this coming winter.
Just a start?
Other clubs that have already made the switch are PEC Zwolle and Cambuur. Both already had sufficient training grounds, hence they could solely focus on the stadium pitch. PEC Zwolle started off with a 100% turf surface before it had it reinforced by SIS Pitches during the winter of 2020. Ever since the investment, the groundsman has made significant progress year-on-year in the national competition for best stadium field.
Cambuur moved into a new stadium this summer. Here, they now play on a standard Grassmaster surface, whereby the yarns go 18 centimetres deep.
MVV and FC Volendam have indicated that they aspire to also have a turf or hybrid turf pitch before the deadline of the 2025/2026 season. Other clubs are still trying to find a solution. For example, FC Emmen is considering repurposing its stadium area into a sports boulevard to generate additional investments to fund a renovation of their pitch. However, some clubs are taking a more cautious approach. Behind the scenes, some admit that they have scaled down on their aspirations and prefer to remain in the first division over being forced to invest in a new pitch when being promoted to the Eredivisie.
Incentive for good maintenance
The switch to natural or hybrid turf has to be funded by the clubs. Once the field is in, they can stand a chance of receiving an incentive of up to EUR 350,000 per season, providing the field passes at least two out of three inspections of the surface. The budget for the incentive is put up by the clubs that participate in a UEFA-competition that season. All clubs have agreed that, should they be successful, to share some of the revenue they receive from UEFA, following the sale of broadcasting rights. As these clubs also receive financial support from UEFA for the upkeep of their field during that competition, they’ll be excluded from the disbursement of the incentive by the Eredivisie.
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