Quick Amersfoort Gets Its Hoofdklasse License Back

On October 21st, 2023, the KNBSB (Dutch Baseball Federation) decided to withdraw the Hoofdklasse license of Quick Amersfoort. After filing a complaint, an independent committee ordered to give the licence back.

All the fuzz was about the amount of free funds, Dutch hoofdklasse clubs agreed on. Each hoofdklasse club needs to have €50,000/€70,000 that can be spend freely on their bank accounts.

Quick Amersfoort used to have a deficit of more than €30,000 but managed to get back in the black figures with a surplus of €20,000 now. But according to the KNBSB, this wasn’t enough and the federation decided to withdraw the license, close to the end of the transfer period.

As a result, many, if not most, players decided to leave the club. Now, the committee has decided to give back the license, Quick doesn’t have sufficient players to field a hoofdklasse worthy team. It is not clear what the club will do or if the club can convince those players that left to come back.

If Quick Amersfoort cannot field a hoofdklasse worthy team and sees itself forced to step down from the hoofdklasse, the KNBSB is totally responsible for that. The timing of this move to withdraw the license has been very poorly chosen, shortly before the end of the transfer period.

If one of the top three hoofdklasse clubs had been in the same situation, likely, the KNBSB would have followed a different trajectory.

Unfortunately, one person on Facebook was so frustrated about what happened, that he/she thought it was necessary to compare the KNBSB with the NSB, the Dutch Nazi party during the 1930s and 1940s. Sure you can disagree with the Dutch Baseball Federation, but calling them Nazis is not the way.