Dutch Federation partially cancels men’s program

The Dutch Basketball Federation (NBB) has decided to not field a men’s U20 and senior national team until 2014.

The NBB depends for a large part on financial support from the government and that is less and less each year. It has resulted in a very weak financial position and a debt of € 400.000. Therefore, expenses have to be cut and this has resulted in the above dramatic decision.

The Dutch government and Olympic committee is extremely focused on the medal ranking at the Olympic games and that determines which sport federations will get financial aid.

Basketball being the second most popular sport on the planet makes the competition fierce and the likelihood of ever winning something very unlikely.
On the other hand, the Netherlands excels in exotic, little known sports. There is very little competition there. Within those sports the Dutch also deliberately target women’s sports because there is even less competition there then among men.

Dutch state sponsored sports has everything to do with national pride and nothing with the sports itself. It is ironic that 23 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the Netherlands has adopted a DDR (East Germany) sports model. So far, it has been a success because the Netherlands is consistently among the top 10-15 countries in the medal rankings of the Olympic games. In addition, when the Dutch succed, they usually win gold. They seldom have to settle for silver or bronze.

The only problem is that the rest of the world doesn not know about the Dutch success in the rankings, and doesn’t care either. The rest of the world cares about big sports such as Basketball, Volleyball, track and field, gymnastics e.t.c. Those are the sports that count. Not mountain biking or sailing for women.