Eredivisie Champions: The Eredivisie, also known as the Honor Division of the Netherlands is the highest category of the Netherlands Leagues system. It is organization under the Royal Netherlands Football Association. It began to in season 1956-57, two years after the professionalization of Dutch football.
The first National Championship was in 1888-89 with 7 clubs from Amsterdam, The Hague, Haarlem and Rotterdam.
During the first half of the 20th century a format based on regional divisions was used, whose champions would face all against all in a final league for the title.
As organizer, the Royal Netherlands Football Association opted for a strictly amateur model until in 1953 several clubs founded a parallel professional championship.
Eventually both parties would reach an agreement: the federation assumed professionalism in 1954, and two years later it restructured the system to the current model.
Although up to 53 teams have participated for at least one season, only 8 have been crowned league champions. The 3 most important clubs in the Netherlands Ajax in Amsterdam, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord Rotterdam have won the most editions since 1965. Although his domain has been recently discussed by other teams such as AZ Alkmaar and FC Twente.
Eredivisie Champions:
Even though 53 different teams have played the Eredivisie throughout its history, only 8 clubs have been able to win the tournament so far. Ajax Amsterdam on 26 occasions, PSV Eindhoven in 21, The Feyenoord Rotterdam in 10, The AZ Alkmaar in two and the DOS Utrecht, DWS Amsterdam, Sparta Rotterdam, Twente Football Club in one.
Top scorers of the Eredivisie:
The historic top scorer of the competition is the Dutch Willy van der Kuijlen, with a total of 311 goals. He did 308 goals defending in which he played from 1964 to 1981, while 3 remaining were in their last professional season, in the MVV Maastricht.
The rest of the podium is occupied by his compatriots Ruud Geels (266 goals) and Johan Cruyff (216 goals). Also, read more about Eredivisie at their official website.
