Royal Dutch Football Association

The Royal Dutch Football Association, in Dutch the Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond and known as the KNVB, is the governing body of football in the Netherlands. It organises the main Dutch professional leagues, the Eredivisie and the Eerste Divisie, as well as the amateur leagues, the KNVB Cup, and the Dutch men's and women's national teams. It is based in the central municipality of Zeist and, with over 1.2 million members, is the largest sports association in the country. The KNVB was formed after several football clubs broke away from the Nederlandse Voetbal en Athletiek Bond, which had been founded in 1889, and it was one of the founding members of FIFA in 1904 and one of the first non-British football associations in Europe. For three seasons in the 2010s it ran a joint top-level women's league, the BeNe League, with its Belgian counterpart. In 2012 it launched an action plan called Football for everyone to support gay players in coming out.