Eredivisie CV, together with the clubs, has launched an archive on YouTube. In the archive there are over 1,000 highlights of the 53 (including former) Eredivisie clubs to view. Goals, summaries and even live games will be available to the viewers. At the same time, fans will be able to supply missing football footage in order to complete the archive. By providing access to this cultural football heritage the Eredivisie aims to secure the 60-year archive for the future and make it accessible to fans at home and abroad.
On Friday 1 September, the archive was officially launched at the Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision) in Hilversum. In association with the Eredivisie clubs, ODMedia, Beeld en Geluid, the NOS (Dutch Broadcast Foundation) and Google, over 1,000 memorable moments from the Eredivisie’s 60 years was launched online. Unique footage of Johan Cruyff, Ruud Gullit, Romário, Luis Suárez, Ronaldo and many other legends, as well as championship games, historic victories and other highlights.
Alex Tielbeke, CEO of Eredivisie CV: “There are currently thousands of hours of video footage in the archive of Beeld en Geluid and NOS, which football fans cannot access. By making the Eredivisie’s archive accessible on YouTube, fans at home and abroad can access our rich history. This is a first in the football world, because there has never been such a major, collective approach to the archive footage before.”
Call for fans to add missing footage to the archive
Despite the fact that there are a great many historic moments online, the archive is far from complete. Eredivisie CV calls on fans to share missing footage. Alex Tielbeke: “During our search for the archive footage we discovered that many old video clips were still on analogue tapes. Over the years, almost half these images have become unusable, untraceable and some were even destroyed. Therefore, we would like to ask anyone that still possesses historic footage of the Eredivisie, to share it with us. This means we can all ensure that our football archive is accessible and continues to be so, to everyone.”
Over 1,000 videos on 32 YouTube channels
Footage of the 18 current and 13 ex-Eredivisie clubs has been published on 31 club-specific archive channels, which means fans can easily view the footage of their favourite club. Videos of the 22 former professional football clubs, such as FC Amsterdam, HFC Haarlem and RBC Roosendaal are bundled on a single collective Eredivisie archive channel. This is where fans can also view the best footage of the professional football clubs that are still active.
Partnership with ODMedia and YouTube
Eredivisie CV has worked closely with ODMedia and YouTube the past months in order to make this project possible. Sjef Pijnenburg, CEO of ODMedia: “This project is the only one of its kind in the world and is also unique for ODMedia. We are proud to have had the opportunity to work on this fantastic project alongside the Eredivisie and the other parties involved. Over the past nine months we have applied a large part of our services portfolio, from technical editing to design and our expertise related to YouTube through our subsidiary Expoza, to make the Eredivisie archive accessible to fans across the globe.”
Tomos Grace, Head of Sport, YouTube EMEA: “YouTube is where users go for comprehensive, official highlights, great live content and some of the most creative sport producers on the planet. But it’s also the home of the history of sport, and one of the leagues with the richest sporting history is the Eredivisie. So we’re very proud to have the Eredivisie’s amazing archive on the YouTube platform. This will allow fans worldwide to relive famous moments from the past and find unique footage unavailable until now anywhere on the internet.”
The Eredivisie archive can be viewed as of today on: https://www.youtube.com/EredivisieArchiefHome