This listing is an overview of all clubs that have ever competed in the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB), from the highest level down to the eighth division.

Although the KNVB was founded on 8 December 1889 the first official competition was not played until the 1897-1898 season. However, as of 1888 competition was played in the Netherlands, though not recognised by the KNVB. Therefore, from this year on all clubs are listed and an insight is given in the histories of the clubs, in particular mergers and name changes. For this purpose dates of foundation are of course significant.
After a merger most clubs hold on to the foundation date of the oldest club, but in some cases the effective date of the merger.
Briefly the dates of name changes or mergers with another club are given. Here we came across a phenomenon that could be interpreted in more ways than one: when a football club merged with a club that was in another branch of sports an omni-club was formed. However, this association did not form due to a merger of two clubs which both should have been included in this overview. In such a case, the choice was made to denote a name change of the football club. An arrow indicates that the name behind it is also included in this listing.

In the early years the NAVB (Dutch Football and Athletics Association), the NVB (Athletics was dropped in 1921) or KNVB (the Association became Royal in 1929) forbade a club joining the league to have the same name as an already existing member of the league. That is why many name changes took place at the moment that a club joined the KNVB. However, the name that was given by the founders is often still used in the local region of the club.
The merger between KNVB, the Roman Catholic Federation (RKF), the Christian Federation (CNVB), some ‘office-federations’ and the Workers Federation in 1940 (forced by the German occupation) also caused many clubs to change their names. In particular clubs from the Roman Catholic Federation then took the name of their location or an abbreviation, preceded by R.K.
The RKF, the Office-Association and Workers clubs were completely integrated into the KNVB. The CNVB, playing on Saturdays only, was integrated as well, but still up to these days the Netherlands know two kinds of league football: Sunday-league and Saturday-league. As from the mid-70's many clubs without any religious base have formed a Saturday-section.
In July 1954 a dissident professional league was launched but three month later this NBVB merged with KNVB and at that time professional football was introduced officially in the Netherlands.

During the Second World War a vast number of clubs whose names were affiliated to the royal family or patriotic ideals were forced to change their names. However, after the liberation the old names were soon re-established.
The Netherlands are rather unique in naming clubs by abbreviations. That is why the meaning of these are given at all clubs concerned.
Finally a short explanation is given of the origins of names. Although the list is not meant to be a geographical or historical one, it is often of interest to know what the origins of names are. It may be a region, a river, a vicar or a mythological figure. In some cases it is a complete mystery what motivated the founders to choose a certain name.
The term ‘naar een stadsdeel’ (part of the city) may seem a bit overdone in case of a small town or village, but this is used for the sake of uniformity. In most situations a part of the city was an independent village at the time of the club’s foundation.

Until 1996 regional associations (known as ‘afdelingen’) existed from which the champions were promoted to the KNVB. There were 20 afdelingen (Groningen, Friesland, Drente, Overijssel, Twente, Gelderland, Arnhem, Nijmegen, Utrecht, Noord-Holland, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Den Haag, Leiden, Rotterdam, Gouda, Dordrecht, Zeeland, Noord-Brabant and Limburg). Since 1996 all Dutch clubs play in the KNVB because all local federations were integrated in the KNVB. Hence some 600 clubs joined the KNVB and clubs that were never promoted from their respective ‘afdeling’ came into the KNVB anyway.

Also the year is indicated in which the club participated for the first time in the Saturday- or Sunday competitions of the KNVB.

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