Eredivisie

Towards smoke-free stadiums

All Eredivisie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie (First Division) stadiums will be smoke free from the start of the 2020 season. This is the aim of rookvrijestadions.nl, a new platform created by the Eredivisie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie in partnership with all 34 professional football clubs in the Netherlands, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) and the Dutch Alliance for a Smoke-Free Society (Alliantie Nederland Rookvrij) – an initiative launched by the Dutch Heart Foundation (Hartstichting), Dutch Cancer Society (KWF Kankerbestrijding) and Dutch Lung Foundation (Longfonds). Starting next season (2019-2020), clubs that are not yet (completely) smoke free will actively discourage smoking. 

Football supporters who go to a stadium to enjoy a match include smokers and non-smokers. We ask all smokers not to inflict their smoke on others who have no choice but to breathe it in. Passive smoking is a health hazard. Supporters are assigned specific seats in the stands and cannot choose to sit elsewhere.

The campaign ties in with the Dutch Smoke-Free Generation movement, which wants children to grow up in a smoke-free environment. Smoking is now banned in public buildings and restaurants and has been for some time. Vitesse, Ajax and Almere City FC are all smoke-free clubs and PSV Eindhoven will also be completely smoke free from next season onwards. Matches played by the Netherlands national football team and other representative teams are smoke free, an increasing number of amateur clubs are smoke free and professional clubs are creating more and more smoke-free areas.

Smoke-free means smoke-free throughout: stands, toilets, restaurants, stairs, business areas, suites and skyboxes are all smoke free. The only place smoking is allowed is outside the stadium! The Eredivisie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie are aware that it will be difficult to enforce the ban in certain parts of the stadiums, but will do everything they can to prepare for the new smoke-free policy during the coming season.

More information can be found at www.rookvrijestadions.nl

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