{"id":18352,"date":"2025-09-19T09:26:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svjmedia.nl\/internationaljournalism\/?p=18352"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:13:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:13:35","slug":"resurrection-of-vitesse-shows-importance-of-sports-clubs-to-european-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svjmedia.nl\/internationaljournalism\/18352\/resurrection-of-vitesse-shows-importance-of-sports-clubs-to-european-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Resurrection of Vitesse shows importance of sports clubs to European communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football club Vitesse from Arnhem in the Netherlands nearly lost their professional license this summer in a series of events that observers described as a rollercoaster. The reactions in Arnhem to all events are exemplary for the meaning of sports as a communal identity, says professor of Sports Management and Sports Business Jan Willem van der Roest. <\/strong><\/p>\n

This week football club Vitesse Arnhem will play their first home game of the season, after the first four games could not carry on because of the repeal of the club\u2019s professional license. The reason for the Dutch Royal Football Association (KNVB) to revoke Vitesse\u2019s license is a pattern \u2018bypassing and undermining the licensing system\u2019, according to the KNVB. Vitesse has been in crisis since the sanctioning of their Russian former owner after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Further takeovers failed and amplified the financial struggles. The decision by the KNVB was overturned on September 3rd<\/sup>, after a long series of appeals and court cases.<\/p>\n

Collective meaning<\/h3>\n

The current mood in Arnhem is one of joy and relief. \u2018\u2018With every lost appeal the feeling my club wouldn\u2019t come back grew. I mostly felt a huge loss for the city, it\u2019s part of the DNA of Arnhem. Regaining the license feels like a miracle. I love the fact that I can go back to whining about our right-winger this weekend\u2019 says local fan Tim Koehoorn. Tickets for the upcoming home game, the first after regaining the professional license, were sold out in less than seven hours, after which new seats were freed, which also sold out.<\/p>\n

\"Fan<\/p>\n

That a sports club can evoke such emotion and feeling isn\u2019t strange, according to Jan-Willem van der Roest, professor in Sports Management and Sports Business at the Technical University of Amsterdam. \u2018Sport has a collective meaning. Starting in the last decades, people are looking for ways to experience togetherness. Sports, and in the case of most European countries football, has been just that.\u2019 This is very visible during events like the Olympics or World Cup, where the streets are filled with the national colours. A local club like Vitesse adds a different layer: \u2018People give a collective meaning to the club; it becomes part of a common identity in a city.\u2019 If a club disappears, the collective loss can leave a permanent scar on a community, according to Van der Roest.<\/p>\n

\"Map

Assortment of UEFA-affiliated clubs that (almost) dissolved or lost their professional license<\/p><\/div>\n

Europe-wide problem<\/h3>\n

Vitesse is not the only football club in existential trouble in Europe. Girondins de Bordeaux, champions of France in 2009, lost their professional license in 2024. Sheffield Wednesday, historically one of the most supported football clubs in England, is currently in large financial struggles and \u2018on the brink of collapse\u2019 according to observers. Boavista FC, the fourth most successful club in Portugal, was removed from the professional football system, due to failing registration. Not only men\u2019s football clubs are affected. Independent Swedish women\u2019s club Kopparbergs\/G\u00f6teborg FC joined men\u2019s club BK H\u00e4cken from the same city after almost dissolving, losing their independent character.<\/p>\n

Professional football clubs are more than a cultural marker. Sport clubs have a large communal impact through education, promoting children\u2019s health and organizing events. In the top division of English football tickets have grown so much in price that it has become impossible for most people to visit. Especially in those cases the communal activities from the club grow in importance, according to Van der Roest. \u2018You get way further with the logo of a club, than with the logo of the local council.<\/p>\n

\"Football<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Football club Vitesse from Arnhem in the Netherlands nearly lost their professional license this summer in a series of events that observers described as a rollercoaster. The reactions in Arnhem to all events are exemplary for the meaning of sports as a communal identity, says professor of Sports Management and Sports Business Jan Willem van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3086,"featured_media":18418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cbj","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nResurrection of Vitesse shows importance of sports clubs to European communities - International Journalism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Resurrection of Vitesse shows importance of sports clubs to European communities - International Journalism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Football club Vitesse from Arnhem in the Netherlands nearly lost their professional license this summer in a series of events that observers described as a rollercoaster. 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