Jeanet Maria Petronella van der Laan (; born 20 January 1980) is a Dutch retired footballer, teacher, and politician of the social liberal party

Democrats 66 Democrats 66 (; abbreviated D66, ) is a Social liberalism, social liberal List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands, which positions itself in the Centrism, centre of the Left–right political spectrum, p ...

(D66). A defender of

FC Lisse FC Lisse is a Dutch football club from Lisse which was founded in 1981. It currently plays in the Tweede Divisie. History The history of FC Lisse is linked to its Catholic religion, the first version of a football club being formed in 1911 by a ...

, she became the first girl to be allowed to play in a national boys' competition in 1995. She later played for

Ter Leede Ter Leede is a football club based in Sassenheim, Netherlands. The club was established on 30 April 1930, as a merger of the clubs ''Poellaan'' and ''Roda''. The men's team is currently playing in the Dutch Hoofdklasse, after being relegated from ...

, winning the women's national championship multiple times, and she appeared in 29 international matches as part of the women's national football team. Van der Laan also worked as a teacher, and she retired from football in 2007. She was elected to the Lisse

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

in 2010 and continued serving there with a half-year hiatus until she became an

alderwoman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members th ...

in 2018. Van der Laan was elected to the House of Representatives in the 2021 general election.

Early life and education

Van der Laan was born and raised in Lisse,

South Holland South Holland ( nl, Zuid-Holland ) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.7 million as of October 2021 and a population density of about , making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely ...

. She has an older brother and a younger sister, and her parents worked at a dahlia nursery. In 1998, after having completed her secondary education, Van der Laan started studying Dutch at the Educatieve Faculteit Amsterdam, a cooperation between the

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

and Holland Universities of Applied Sciences to train teachers. She also studied

public administration Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment (public governance), management of non-profit establ ...

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

starting in 2007 and earned a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

Association football

Van der Laan began playing football at the age of six. In June 1995, she became the first girl to be allowed to play in a national boys' competition of the

Royal Dutch Football Association The Royal Dutch Football Association (, ; KNVB ) is the governing body of football in the Netherlands. It organises the main Dutch football leagues (Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie), the amateur leagues, the KNVB Cup, and the Dutch men's and women ...

(KNVB).

's male B1 team, to which Van der Laan belonged, had won a regional league and had been promoted to the national third division. The KNVB granted the permission to Van der Laan due to her role in the promotion and due to her performance in the women's national youth team. She subsequently played as part of the A2 boys' squad and left FC Lisse in 1997 to join the

Sassenheim Sassenheim () is a town and former municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The former municipality covered an area of 6.62 km² (of which 0.23 km² water) and had a population of 14,906 in 2005. Since ...

club

. There, she was part of the women's squad, which won the national championship for women several times. Van der Laan had also joined the women's national football team as a

right-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

, debuting in an August 2001 match against

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. As part of the Dutch team, she won the silver medal in women's football at the

2001 Summer Universiade The 2001 Summer Universiade, also known as the XXI Summer Universiade, was an international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, between 22 August and 1 September. A total of 6,757 athletes from 165 nations took part in 12 sports ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. She played in a total of 29 international matches until she left the team in 2003 because of her non-football career. Van der Laan stopped playing football at Ter Leede in 2007, when the Vrouwen Eredivisie was introduced. In the early 2000s, she worked for a few years for WK Producties, which was responsible for football broadcasts on the TV channel SBS6. Van der Laan became a KNVB ambassador in 2016, and she joined the

NPO Radio 1 NPO Radio 1 is a public-service radio channel in the Netherlands, broadcasting mainly news and sport. It is part of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system, NPO. History The channel originated in 1947 as "Hilversum 2", and transmitted using ...

show ''Langs de Lijn'', providing analysis of matches of the 2017 UEFA European Women's Championship and the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. It ...

including the final of the 2017 championship. In 2020, she became chair of SC Telstar's advisory board, which was established to get their women's team into the Eredivisie.

Teaching career and politics

Van der Laan started teaching Dutch at the Lisse secondary school Fioretti College in the early 2000s and also became team leader of its first year in 2005. While still working there, she was elected into the

of Lisse in the 2010 municipal election as a member of the local political party Nieuw Lisse. She left the council in September 2013 in order to join D66 and was succeeded by her brother Michael. Van der Laan was D66's third candidate in Lisse in the 2014 municipal election, and she became the party's caucus leader in the council after the election. She was appointed chair of D66's new national thematic department Sport and Exercise in early 2016. Van der Laan had lobbied for its establishment in order to make sport policy more prominent within the party. She was D66's 32nd candidate in the

2017 general election This national electoral calendar for 2017 lists the national/federal elections held in 2017 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 November ...

, receiving 1,588

preference votes In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision the ...

, but was not elected due to her party winning nineteen seats. Van der Laan was re-elected to Lisse's council in 2018, being D66's

lead candidate In politics, a lead candidate (; , ) is the leader of a political party in an election to a legislative body. In parliamentary systems, it is often the party's nominee for the position of head of government. In open list electoral systems, it is ...

. She left both the council and the Fioretti College in May 2018 to serve as

in the new

municipal executive In the Netherlands, the municipal executive (, ) is the executive board of a municipality. It plays a central role in municipal politics in the Netherlands, similar to the communal college in Belgium. It consists of the mayor and the members of t ...

. Her portfolio included spatial planning, sustainability, education, culture, youth, and sport affairs.

House of Representatives

Van der Laan ran for member of parliament again in the 2021 general election, being placed thirteenth on D66's

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

. During the campaign, she said that politics should pay more attention to sports, calling it neglected and important for fighting obesity. Van der Laan was elected into the House of Representatives with 10,489 preference votes, and she was installed on 31 March. Her specialities within D66 were higher education, science, emancipation, sports, health care prevention, and long-term care, and she is on the Committees for Education, Culture and Science; for Health, Welfare and Sport; for Justice and Security; and for Social Affairs and Employment. She is also a member of the Dutch parliamentary delegation to the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...

. A few months after her election, Van der Laan started writing a bill to ban

conversion therapy Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. In contrast to evidence-based medicine and cli ...

together with politicians from other parties. This followed inaction by the cabinet on the issue after a House majority had indicated the desire for such a ban. The Council of State advised against the law in early 2023, saying that its added value had to be elaborated on. The governmental body stated that discrimination and coercion were already forbidden, while a total ban would be in conflict with the

freedom of religion Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...

. Van der Laan also successfully called for an investigation into abuse in competitive dancing following news reports, and she introduced a

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and mea ...

to explicitly prohibit

match fixing In organized sports, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a match with the intention of achieving a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, ...

, which passed the House. She was D66's in Lisse in the 2022 municipal elections.

Personal life

Van der Laan resides in Lisse and has also lived in the nearby town of Noordwijk. She has been married to Kevin Winter, a retired amateur football player for FC Lisse,

IJsselmeervogels IJsselmeervogels () is a Dutch amateur football club. With seven national amateur titles IJsselmeervogels is the most successful amateur club in the Netherlands. The Reds come from Bunschoten Bunschoten () is a municipality and a town in th ...

, and

Rijnsburgse Boys Rijnsburgse Boys is a football club from Rijnsburg in the Netherlands. The club was established on 24 March 1930. They currently play in the Tweede Divisie. The club won the Saturday Hoofdklasse A title in the 2005–06, 2006–07 and 2008–0 ...

, since 2015. They have three sons, two of which are twins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laan, Jeanet van der 1980 births 21st-century Dutch educators 21st-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch women politicians Aldermen in South Holland Democrats 66 politicians Dutch schoolteachers Dutch women's footballers FC Lisse players Footballers from South Holland Leiden University alumni Living people Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) Municipal councillors in South Holland Netherlands women's international footballers People from Lisse Ter Leede players FISU World University Games silver medalists for the Netherlands Dutch sportsperson-politicians Women's association football defenders