The Vrouwen Eredivisie (; Dutch for "Women's Honour Division"; known as the Eredivisie Vrouwen before 2020), also known as the Eurojackpot Vrouwen Eredivisie for sponsorship reasons, is the highest women's football league in the Netherlands. Organised by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB), it was established in 2007 as a professional league and played for five seasons until 2012, when the Netherlands and Belgium merged their leagues into a single combined league, the BeNe League. After three seasons, the BeNe League folded, and the Eredivisie restarted in the 2015–16 season. The top two Eredivisie teams each year qualify for the UEFA Women's Champions League. The third place team qualifies for the UEFA Women's Europa Cup. FC Twente has won 10 league championships, while Ajax and AZ have won three.
History Background Since the 1970s, amateur women's football competitions have been played in the Netherlands, with the Hoofdklasse being the highest level. During the 1990s, the popularity of women's football rose, with the sport becoming an Olympic event in 1996 and selling hundreds of thousands of tickets for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. With the Netherlands women's national team unable to qualify to major tournaments such as the Women's World Cup, UEFA Women's Championship, or the Olympics, and the most talented female players leaving for other countries with professional leagues, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) felt compelled to act.
In January 2007, the KNVB presented plans for the Eredivisie Vrouwen, a professional women's league. Many clubs were interested, and on 20 March 2007, the KNVB formally announced the league for three seasons, with the first scheduled for 2007–08 with six clubs: ADO Den Haag, AZ, sc Heerenveen, FC Twente, FC Utrecht, and Willem II.
According to the league's business plan, initially the national team players were divided amongst the six clubs. In addition to organizing the league, the KNVB provided a start-up subsidy, contribution to the costs, and technical assistance to the professional clubs, which in return would provide technical and medical staff, transport, training, and other facilities to their players. The clubs needed an affiliate agreement with an amateur club that would use players coming back from injury, reserve players, or young talented players from the professional club. The league planned to expand from six clubs to 10–12 clubs in five to eight years.
Foundation and expansion (2007–2010) On 29 August 2007, the opening ceremony for the launch of the Eredivisie Vrouwen took place at the Arke Stadion in Enschede, with the presentation of the six participating teams, ahead of the league's inaugural match played by FC Twente and sc Heerenveen in front of 5.500 spectators. Heerenveen won the match 3–2. scored the first-ever Eredivisie goal for Twente, 73 seconds into the match. At the end of the season, AZ were crowned the first league champions and Karin Stevens the top scorer with 20 goals.
On 15 April 2008, Roda JC was confirmed as the seventh team for the 2008–09 season. AZ won the championship for a second consecutive year, and Sylvia Smit was the top scorer with 14 goals. On 5 May 2009, financial problems forced Roda JC to announce its withdraw from the Eredivisie. The six founding teams participated in the 2009–10 season, which AZ won for the third consecutive season. Smit, for the second consecutive season, and Chantal de Ridder were top scorers with 11 goals each.
Two new teams, VVV-Venlo and FC Zwolle, joined the league on 10 March 2010, increasing the number of teams to eight for the 2010–11 season. Twente won its first league title, breaking AZ's three-year championship streak. Chantal de Ridder was the top scorer for a second consecutive season with 19 goals.
League changes and BeNe League (2011–2012) On 22 February 2011, during the second half of the 2010–11 season, a meeting between the league, the KNVB, and clubs was held to discuss improving the league. A statement from the KNVB announced that for the next season, matchdays would move from Thursdays to Fridays, relationship changes between clubs and their affiliated amateur clubs, guideline principles amongst other topics discussed and the financial conditions were to be discussed on a further meeting, as the KNVB was trying to keep the league with eight teams next season. That day, following the meeting, three-time league champions AZ announced it would withdraw from the league once the season was completed. The next day, Willem II announced it was also withdrawing from the league's next season. Financial issues were responsible for both clubs' decision. PSV, working to build a women's team, confirmed on 3 March it would not participate in the following season. On 8 March, FC Utrecht also announced its withdraw from the next season, also due to financial reasons, but on 6 April 2011 retreated its withdrawal and confirmed it had secured finances for one more season. On 14 April, sc Heerenveen announced its withdraw due to financial issues. Two weeks later, on 26 April, as the club continued working to find sponsors to remain in the league, RBC Roosendaal presented a possibility of entering a team if its male team remained in Eerste Divisie. The KNVB extension of the clubs' registration deadline allowed sc Heerenveen to secure the funds needed to play another season, and on 28 April, the club confirmed its participation. On 27 May, Telstar was confirmed as the seventh team for the following season.
ADO Den Haag won the 2011–12 season, the club's first league title, and Priscilla de Vos of Telstar was the top scorer with 16 goals. It was the last Eredivisie season for several years: on 30 August 2011, the KNVB and its Belgian counterpart, the KBVB, presented a proposal to merge their women's professional leagues into a combined BeNe League. On 10 December, the KBVB agreed to go ahead with the BeNe League, and two days later, the KNVB decided to stop investing in the Eredivisie for the next three years. On 13 February 2012, the KNVB announced it was also going ahead with the BeNe League, and on 23 March, it received approval from UEFA. The new league had its inaugural season in 2012–13.
Restart and growth (2015–2024) After three seasons, the BeNe League folded at the end of the 2014–15 season. On 2 April 2015, the KNVB confirmed the restart of the Eredivisie Vrouwen with the participation of the seven Dutch clubs that played in the final BeNe League season. Ajax and PSV made their debut in the re-formed Eredivisie , as both clubs established women's teams in 2012. They joined ADO Den Haag, SC Heerenveen, Telstar, FC Twente, and PEC Zwolle, which all returned to the Eredivisie after the 2011–12 season.
FC Twente won its second Eredivisie title in 2015–16, and Jill Roord of Twente was the top scorer with 20 goals. The 2016–17 season was played by eight clubs after Achilles '29 was confirmed as newcomers on 16 June 2016. Ajax won their first title, and Telstar's Katja Snoeijs was the top scorer with 21 goals.
On 1 March 2017, Telstar announced it was being replaced by a new club, VV Alkmaar. VV officially formed on 21 April. On 10 April, Excelsior Barendrecht became the ninth team in the Eredivisie. On 19 April 2019, Achilles '29 announced it was ending its participation in the Eredivisie. The club had poor finances and poor performances, finishing above last place once in its three years in the league. One week later, on 26 April, sc Heerenveen also announced it would cease competing. However, on 19 June, the club reversed course and announced it would continue its women's team.
Due to COVID-19, the 2019–20 season ended early, with the final match played on 18 February 2020. No champion was named, with PSV having the most points when the season was halted. Joëlle Smits of PSV was the leading scorer with 16 goals. In August 2020, the league was re-branded as Vrouwen Eredivisie and given a new logo with a stylized lioness.
On 31 March 2021, Feyenoord announced that the club would join the Eredivisie in the 2021–22 season. In January 2022, Dutch media reported that Fortuna Sittard and Telstar would compete in the Eredivisie the following season, taking the league to 11 clubs. Telstar returned to the league after five years, while Fortuna was a newcomer. Both sought to capitalise on the growing domestic popularity of the women's game. FC Utrecht rejoined the Eredivisie in the 2023–24 season, bringing the league to 12 clubs. That season, AZ Alkmaar replaced VV Alkmaar, rejoining the league for the first time since 2011.
New teams and contraction (2025–present) In April 2025, Fortuna Sittard announced it would dissolve its women's team at the end of the 2024–25 season. On 16 June, NAC Breda announced that its women's team, which began competing in a lower division the previous September, would take Fortuna's place in the league. The next day, the league announced a re-structuring, with the Eredivisie contracting to 10 teams beginning in the 2026–27 season and a formal promotion and relegation system, with the second-tier splitting into an Eerste Divisie and Tweede Divisie, creating a pyramid structure. In September, the KNVB agreed to transfer Telstar's license to Hera United, a new, women's-only club in Amsterdam. Management of Hera and ADO both criticized the KNVB's planned contraction of the Eredivisie.
The bottom three teams in the 2025–26 season, Hera, Excelsior, and NAC, were relegated. On 22 May 2026, the final matchday of the season, De Graafschap won an Eerste Divisie playoff against Ajax's reserve team to confirm their promotion to the 10-team Eredivisie. PSV won its first league title and Feyenoord finished third, knocking Twente out of European competition. PSV also won its first Super Cup in July.
Format The Eredivisie plays in a double round-robin format, with all 12 teams playing each other once at home and once on the road.
Due to the varying number of teams in the league, its schedule has had several different formats. From its inception until 2009–10, the Eredivisie played in a quadruple round-robin format, with teams playing each other four times a season. The following two season, 2010–11 and 2011–12, the schedule was changed to a triple round-robin, with teams playing each other three times, once at home, once away, and the host of the third match determined by lottery before the season. When the Eredivisie returned in 2015–16, so did the original quadruple round-robin schedule.
From 2016 to 2020, the season was split in two parts, a regular season, where all clubs play a triple round-robin format, and a playoff, where the top four teams, based on points, form a champions group and the remaining teams form a placement group. Each group then played a double round-robin schedule. Points won in the regular season were halved and added to the points of the playoff stage rounds to determine final rankings. In the 2021–22 season, the league returned to a triple round-robin system, eliminating the playoff groups. In the 2022–23 season, the league adopted its current double round-robin format.
There has not been relegation from the Eredivisie, but the league announced in March 2024 that there would be a promotion and relegation system beginning during the 2024–25 season. Promotion and relegation had been planned since 2008. Teams may be promoted from the lower . The last placed Eredivisie team can be relegated if a club's first team wins the Eerste Divisie.All Eredivise clubs also have second-teams in the Eerste Divisie, according to the Eredivisie That season, there was no relegation due to Fortuna Sittard's dissolution, but the league announced that three clubs would be demoted in the 2025–26 season with one team promoted to form a ten-team league.