Could 133 Eredivisie matches be replayed? The cris…

WHEN TJARONN CHERY gets back home after international duty with Suriname, it’s usually a short turnaround — a hello to the family, hugs to the kids, then back to club duty with NEC Nijmegen. But in late March, when he returned after Suriname fell short of qualifying for the World Cup, his kids were confused as to why he was sitting around the house a little more than often. He wasn’t injured; he was waiting.

“I had to stay home for five days because I wasn’t allowed at the club. I guess my family got to see dad for a change,” Chery told ESPN Netherlands. “But the kids and wife were asking me, ‘What’s going on?'”

Over the past several weeks, panic has swept across Dutch football. It has involved a podcast, players being stood down, clubs scrambling for legal advice and information, and the KNVB (the Dutch football association) seeking urgent clarification on whether several players were eligible. About 25 players (including Chery) were implicated in Passportgate, a crisis stemming from confusion about dual nationality and unlike anything the Netherlands has seen before.

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On Monday, a Utrecht court judgment in the case between the club that started it all — NAC Breda — and the KNVB could flip Dutch football on its head. If the judge rules in NAC’s favor, the KNVB faces the prospect of a scheduling nightmare, and potentially having to replay at least 133 matches.

In the middle of it all, a group of bemused Indonesian, Surinamese and Cape Verdean players who had agreed to represent those countries without knowing the snowball effect their decisions could cause. “My family were asking me, “Which passport do you have now, and what are you — are you Dutch or Surinamese?'” Chery said.

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‘It could become a very big deal’

A day after NAC Breda lost 6-0 to Go Ahead Eagles on March 15, the hosts of the podcast “De Derde Helft” (“The Third Half”) picked through their heavy defeat. It’s a popular podcast; players and administrators listen to it, and it usually provokes debate.

Having analyzed NAC Breda’s paper-thin defense, one of their pundits, Rogier Jacobs, casually dropped into conversation: “Well, NAC Breda can still win this match.” Cue bemused faces from those sitting around him. Jacobs explained how Go Ahead might have fielded an ineligible player, Dean James, after the left back accepted Indonesia‘s offer of international football in March 2025.

“If you’re a Dutch player with Indonesian roots, you can choose to play for Indonesia,” he said. “You’ll get a passport there, but what a lot of players and clubs don’t know is in some cases, you’d therefore give up your Dutch nationality.”

“If a player renounces his Dutch citizenship, as it were, you enter a different jurisdiction. In fact, you are then a foreigner,” professor of sport and law Marjan Olfers told ESPN. “And therefore, you must possess a permit to be able to perform your work here.”

James had played on without a work permit and was, by law, ineligible. “If NAC find out about that, file a lawsuit, then this match could end up being a win for them,” Jacobs said. “I was at a drinks reception with someone from a law firm who specializes in this, and he said it could become a very big deal,” he added.

Well, the lawyer was right. Four days after the podcast was released, NAC Breda complained to the KNVB about James’ eligibility. NAC director Jan Willem van Dop said on April 28 that he was alerted to James’ case after he was sent the podcast episode. He then checked the information himself, and it came as a crushing surprise to James.

“[Technical director Jan Willem van Dop] pulled me out of the gym,” James said. “He said that NAC wanted to file a complaint. I had no idea what was going on.”

Top OSS, an Eerste Divisie side, soon followed suit, raising questions over Willem II‘s Indonesia international Nathan Tjoe-A-On‘s eligibility from their match on March 13 and from there, pandemonium ensued. Clubs and agents alike scrambled for legal guidance, trying to determine whether their players were eligible and the full scope of what had happened.

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‘I only blame myself’

Indonesia, Suriname and Cape Verde, former Dutch colonies or countries with sizable numbers of emigrants to the Netherlands, had previously looked to bolster their international sides with Netherlands-based players who could be eligible through their ancestry. The Indonesia national team, for example, already had a strong Dutch influence by the time Patrick Kluivert became the team’s coach in early 2025 (Kluivert left the position in October), with nine of the 11 players who started their World Cup qualifier against Iraq in October born in the Netherlands.

But this all posed an issue. According to Dutch law, Dutch nationality is automatically lost upon voluntarily acquiring another nationality. Applying for a new passport to play for Indonesia, for example, appears to fit that description.

There are some exceptions, but widely speaking, when certain players jumped at offers from Indonesia, Suriname or Cape Verde and accepted dual citizenship, they surrendered Dutch citizenship. In addition, Indonesia does not accept dual nationality at all — you cannot be both Dutch and Indonesian. This rendered the likes of James non-EU players, meaning they needed a work permit to play in the Netherlands.

To get a work permit, a player must hit certain criteria. In Dutch football, the most common means for those over 21 years old is to be paid a wage of €608,000 or more a year. For those under 21, it’s around half that. That threshold immediately ruled out several players across the Dutch leagues, leaving a group who had continued to play in blissful ignorance — without the right work permit.

There were rumblings about this issue in 2025, when Dutch outlet Voetbal International published a story on March 25. “We raised the alarm when we saw an interview with Tom Knipping,” Evgeniy Levchenko, chairman of the Dutch players’ union VVCS, told ESPN. “Then we looked into what the rules were and spoke with lawyers. It soon became apparent that in certain countries, you are not allowed to have dual nationality. We issued a general statement saying, ‘You need to keep this in mind if you are going to play for Indonesia,’ but by in large, they were ignored.”

Some clubs were already aware of the problem. Ajax goalkeeper Maarten Paes was born in the Netherlands and made his international debut for Indonesia in 2024. When Paes moved from FC Dallas to Ajax on Feb. 2, 2026, the club treated him as a non-EU citizen on the advice of their lawyers and applied for a work and resident permit. He had to wait until Feb. 21 to make his debut. But as you drop down the ladder, outside the big three of Feyenoord, PSV Eindhoven and Ajax, there is less legal expertise.

“Legal knowledge lags behind at many clubs, certainly in these areas,” Olfers says. “More and more clubs are employing lawyers, but outside the top of the Eredivisie, you see that knowledge declining. All the money is being spent on the playing field, instead of on advice and expertise away from the pitch.”

Who is to blame for the oversight? Some people, such as Olfers and TOP Oss Surinamese striker Luciano Slagveer, believe at least some of it falls on the players. “In my case, if I had known, I would have thought about it a few more times,” Slagveer told ESPN. “If it really turns out to be true [that I lost my Dutch passport], then the fault lies with me too. Then I didn’t do enough research.”

“I only blame myself,” said FC Emmen and Indonesia wing back Tim Geypens. “I should have looked into it more closely, read it through more thoroughly, and thought about it. And I think I didn’t do that enough.”

Not every player feels the same. “We just play for our country. We don’t know anything else about it,” Fortuna’s Indonesia defender Justin Hubner told ESPN. One agent told ESPN that the national teams approached players directly and didn’t involve their clubs or agents in the process. “We never really had visibility over this, and just heard it was okay if one of their parents was Indonesian or Surinamese. The players just wanted to play for that country so didn’t consider anything else about their passports,” the agent said.

“Not a single government agency has said anything about it in the past two years,” Wilco van Schaik, general manager of NEC, said on the “De Bestuurskamer” (The Boardroom) podcast. “They didn’t send us a letter, neither the KNVB nor the Eredivisie. I am furious about it. We all acted in good faith.”

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What comes next?

As the players returned from the late-March international break, clubs temporarily benched those they were concerned about, including NEC’s Chery and Go Ahead’s James. “I just turned off my phone; if you read everything, you drive yourself crazy,” James said. “For the first five days, there was no clarity yet as to whether things would work out.”

Several Surinamese players were allowed to return to training ahead of matchday 29 and played on the weekend of April 5, such as Chery. In most cases, they received a stamp in their passports from the IND (Immigration and Naturalization Service) allowing them to play again. (Players who have a partner or children in the Netherlands can apply for a so-called EU stamp while waiting for their residence and work permit. The stamp allows them to work as usual.)

Chery captained NEC in their 2-0 win over Excelsior Rotterdam on April 4. He doesn’t fully understand what happened, but he is glad the club and his lawyers handled the situation well. “[My teammates] called asking when I would be coming back,” he told ESPN. “When you play together for so long and are always together, you miss each other. It was messy and there was a bit of panic, but I’m glad everything is sorted out in the end.”

Others remained in exile, like Telstar‘s Dion Malone, who is weighing his next move. “Dion is a smart lad who has also been with Suriname for a very long time,” Telstar’s technical manager Peter Hofstede said. “I think it is only good that he tries to make the right decisions. He is relaxed about it himself — he is not a player who always plays, after all — and mainly wanted to ensure that the club was not harmed.”

Many other players returned across the weekend of April 11-12 — including Geypens, who has been granted a residence permit through 2031 after being suspended by his club for two weeks. But for some, bad blood remained.

“I find it scandalous that the [NAC Breda] management has taken action,” Fortuna Sittard‘s Hubner, the Indonesian international, told ESPN. “What does it matter to that club what nationality you have? Just let them play football. If you get thrashed 6-0 by Go Ahead Eagles, then you have no right to start talking about passports.”

James also made his comeback April 11 in Go Ahead’s 0-0 draw with FC Groningen. “I really wasn’t happy about [NAC’s appeal], let’s leave it at that,” he said. Despite returning to the pitch, his international future is uncertain. “I can’t say much about my situation right now. Of course, I want to keep playing for Indonesia, that is certain. We still have to see how we are going to resolve that.” Indonesia’s rules on prohibiting dual nationality remain steadfast.

Olfers expects the football association and the IND to investigate whether players from outside the EU will be able to obtain a work permit with greater ease in the future, while there are various options to fast-track passport processing and work permits, or the option of issuing permanent residence permits.

The KNVB and the Eredivisie supervisory board (ECV) rejected NAC Breda’s petition to have the match replayed. The KNVB said it wasn’t agreeing to NAC’s demand to have the match replayed as neither James nor Go Ahead were aware of him not having the right permit, as was the case with several other players. Several lawyers with knowledge of the matter told ESPN they are confident NAC would have a chance of overturning the KNVB’s ruling on appeal.

The club’s appeal was heard Tuesday in a court in Utrecht, and the KNVB said if the decision is overturned, it could lead to clubs appealing results of all 133 matches featuring one of the affected players. It feared the Eredivisie schedule would back up to the extent the season would never be finished. “If NAC wins, those other clubs will also file summary proceedings and the like. That could mean that the competition cannot be completed,” Marianne van Leeuwen said on behalf of the KNVB.

NAC argued their appeal concerns only one match: the 6-0 defeat against Go Ahead Eagles. The club’s lawyer in court on Tuesday said the argument it could cause a snowball effect triggering multiple appeals and replayed matches is “a sham.” “These are not amateurs, but professional parties,” NAC’s lawyer said.

“I am standing here with a knot in my stomach,” NAC general manager Remco Oversier said at the hearing. “We have to go to great lengths to let justice do its work. It is certainly not pleasant; I would rather not have been standing here, but in the interest of NAC, I am doing it.”

The judge adjourned the case to give him time to consider both arguments, and the verdict will be released Monday. Meanwhile, the ECV is working closely with government agencies, including the IND, to ensure Passportgate is resolved once and for all.

“We certainly weren’t aware of any of this,” FC Groningen and Surinamese goalkeeper Etienne Vaessen said. “Ultimately, I would like to get my Dutch citizenship back, but I also still want to play for beautiful Suriname. A middle ground needs to be found.”