Go Ahead Eagles break financial shackles

Article posted by Coliseum, November 11^th, 2022

Image: Go Ahead Eagles

The Dutch Eredivisie football club Go Ahead Eagles majority shareholder Kees Vierhouten will foot the bill for the top-flight’s home venue expansion – the De Adelaarshorst stadium in Deventer, Netherlands. They will no longer be looking towards the Municipality of Deventer for financial assistance.

‘AD’ stated that the Go Ahead Eagles will start building the two new grandstands in 2024 – the Brinkgreverweg and the IJsseltribune. These two stands will attribute for the capacity expansion and will be able to accommodate circa 13,000 more supporters.

The Go Ahead Eagles are a Dutch professional football club from the City of Deventer, Netherlands. They play in Eredivisie, the top tier of Dutch football, having achieved promotion from the second tier Eerste Divisie in the 2020-2021 seasons. The club’s home stadium since 1920 is De Adelaarshorst.

Apply for membership

The De Adelaarshorst is a multiuse stadium in Deventer, Netherlands. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of Go Ahead Eagles. The stadium is able to hold 10,400 people and was built in the year 1920.

‘AD’ further stated that Vierhouten who picked up majority stake in the club (90 percent) in August this year will pick up the tab of the venue repurposing in total.

Remarked Vierhouten, “I will pay for the spruce-up work of the De Adelaarshorst stadium as a long-term investment.”

The club still has an outstanding loan from the municipality as a building deposit for previous work, but this will be paid off and they will no longer use the remaining amount from that pot.

Put in Jan Willem van Dop, General Manager of Go Ahead Eagles, “The fact that we can bear the bill of stadium expansion on our own makes us less dependent on public money. This will also help us to keep at bay politicization of the issue – taxpayers-money-being-used-for-stadium-revamp – a topic from which political parties derives a lot of mileage.”

Once the 2022-2023 Dutch Eredivisie season is over (started on August 5^th, 2022 and will conclude on May 28^th, 2023), 150 business seats will be added to the De Adelaarshorst stadium.

Asserted van Dop, “There is a huge requirement for business seats and the need of the hour is to expand the overall capacity of the stadium. As far as the infrastructure of the facility is concerned, I want the Go Eagles home to be on the top of the Eredivisie clubs venues’ heap.”

Continue to follow Coliseum for latest updates on venues business news. Coliseum is dedicated towards building the best global community of sports and entertainment venue executives and professionals creating better and more profitable venues.

Become a member of the only Global Sports Venue Alliance and connect with stadiums, arenas and experts from around the world. Apply for membership at coliseum-online.com/alliance and make use of the 365Coliseum Business.

Watch 250 member-exclusive videos with valuable tips for your venue