Through the late 19th Century, football gained a tremendous amount of popularity across the Netherlands, and in 1904, the Dutch FA became one of the founding members of FIFA. In 1954, football became a professional sport.
Despite its size and relatively small population, the biggest football clubs in the Netherlands have never failed to produce a crop of top-tier talents ready to challenge on the world stage.
Not being among the big-money elite leagues, even the biggest Dutch clubs regularly sell their best prospects to wealthier European clubs, and yet, the biggest teams here can still hold their own in UEFA competitions.
With well over a century of top-flight football in the books, from the Netherlands Football League Championship through to the Eredivisie, these are the biggest football clubs in the Netherlands.
Biggest Clubs in Dutch Football
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Ajax Amsterdam
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PSV Eindhoven
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Feyenoord Rotterdam
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AZ Alkmaar
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FC Twente
In Dutch football, there’s an undisputed ‘Big Three’ which comprises the outright biggest clubs in the country. In the professional era of football in the Netherlands (1954 onwards), the three have won all but seven league titles.
Ajax Amsterdam, PSV Eindhoven, and Feyenoord Rotterdam boast an imperious legacy that dates back to well before the 1950s and holds them as the biggest football clubs in the Netherlands.
With the combination of silverware, domestic dominance, continental success, and popularity, there isn’t another Dutch team that comes close to these three titans of the Netherlands.
An additional mention needs to be made of HVV Den Haag. In the earliest days of organised football in the Netherlands, they were dominant and won ten titles. Their demise came with the professionalisation of the sport.
5) FC Twente
A relatively young team among the biggest football clubs in the Netherlands, FC Twente have only been around since 1965, and yet, they’re one of the few clubs to snag a Dutch title since football turned professional in the 50s.
Soon after joining the fold, FC Twente established themselves as potential usurpers to the throne, continually pushing high up the table in the 1970s and even making it to the 1975 UEFA Cup Final.
However, The Tukkers would have to wait for the 2009/10 season to conquer the ‘Big Three’ – and under the stewardship of former England head coach Steve McClaren, no less.
That season, they pipped Ajax to the title by just one point even with the Amsterdam club boasting a +86 goal difference to Twente’s +40.
Also in the trophy cabinet for FC Twente are three Dutch Cups and three second place finishes in the Eredivisie.
4) AZ Alkmaar
Joining the 1960s infusion of new professional clubs to Dutch football, AZ Alkmaar were originally founded as AZ ’67 after a merger between Alkmaar ’54 and FC Zaanstreek in May 1967.
Similarly to FC Twente, AZ laid down the gauntlet early. Backed by a couple of local millionaires, the club swiftly found its feet and, in the 1980/81 season, pipped the ‘Big Three’ to the Eredivisie title.
Again, similarly to FC Twente, another shot at success would come in the 00s, with AZ Alkmaar charging to the title in 2008/09 to shellshock the league, end PSV’s four-season run on top, and make way for Twente to do the same.
Those two Eredivisie shields join a cabinet of four Dutch Cups and the silver medals from the 1981 UEFA Cup Final, in which the Dutch club lost to Ipswich 5-4 across two legs.
3) Feyenoord Rotterdam
With Feyenoord Rotterdam, we enter the elite bracket of the biggest football clubs in the Netherlands. To date, De Trots van Zuid (The Pride of the South) have secured 16 top-flight titles and 14 Dutch Cups.
A club of the people, Feyenoord has produced a great many nights in UEFA competitions for the Dutch, including triumphs in the European Cup (1970), UEFA Cup (1974, 2002), and Intercontinental Cup (1970).
This season, Feyenoord have, once again, established themselves on the European stage by performing well enough through the opening games to earn a place among the football betting favourites for one of the 9-24 UCL spots.
The Rotterdam club’s last spell of continued dominance came in the 1960s, when they won the title three times between 1961 and 1965, but the club’s regularly been able to pop back up and grab the odd title over the decades.
2) PSV Eindhoven
Formed in 1913 for Philips employees – and still sporting the name of Philips Sport Vereniging (PSV) – this member of the top three biggest football clubs in the Netherlands boasts a tremendous haul of domestic and European silverware.
The famous residents of Philips Stadion playing in Rood-witten (red and white) are firmly the second most successful team in Dutch football history and a constant thorn in the side of the biggest club in the Netherlands.
To date, PSV Eindhoven boasts 25 league titles, 11 Dutch Cups, and the club has won the UEFA Cup and European Cup. Add in their 16 seasons of finishing second in the league, and their dominance is clear to see.
After winning the Eredivisie last season by a solid six-point margin over Feyenoord – Ajax finished fifth – PSV have returned in 2024/25 as the go-to favourites in online betting circles to add yet another league title.
1) Ajax Amsterdam
The other side of De Topper and still the biggest football club in the Netherlands, even with a recent drop from the top, is Ajax Amsterdam as the outright most dominant Dutch force.
Ajax were founded in 1900, named after the hero of ancient Greek myth, but had to bide their time to win their first Dutch crown, with HVV Den Haag, HBS Craeyenhout, and Sparta Rotterdam being the biggest clubs of the time.
In 1917/18, Ajax finally broke through and did so again the following season. It would then take until the 1930s for Ajax to rise to the top of Dutch football and start to cement the club as the nation’s finest team.
Spells of utter dominance in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2010s have all helped to amass a sparkling hall of trophies, cups, medals, and shields for Ajax.
To date, the list of silverware includes 36 Dutch league shields, 20 Dutch Cups, three European Cups, the UEFA Cup, a UEFA Champions League trophy, and two Intercontinental Cups.
While PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord Rotterdam have reaffirmed themselves as the top two Dutch teams right now, it’d take some doing to unseat Ajax Amsterdam as the biggest football club in the Netherlands.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Adobe*
