The KNVB District Cup ( nl, Districtsbeker) is a

cup competition A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

for

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

clubs in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The competition is held in each of the six districts 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 ...

. The 24 semi-finalists qualify for next-seasons

KNVB Cup The KNVB Beker (; en, KNVB Cup), branded as the TOTO KNVB Beker for sponsorship reasons, is a competition in the Netherlands organized by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) since 1898. It was based on the format of the English FA Cup. Ou ...

. The winners of the six cup competitions used to contest for the

KNVB Amateur Cup The KNVB Amateur Cup ( nl, KNVB Beker voor amateurs) was the cup competition for amateur football clubs in the Netherlands. The winner qualified until 2016 for the amateur super cup match against the national Hoofdklasse champion. The cup was ...

, but that cup was abolished in 2016.Programma KNVB Beker 2016 – 2017: meer amateur – Eredivisie 1ste ronde
''soccer4u.nl''. Retrieved 30 June 2021

Competition format

Teams eligible for the competition are: * All first teams of clubs playing in the fifth tier and lower in Dutch league football ( Hoofdklasse and lower); * The champions and period champions of all Reserve Hoofdklasse leagues. The competition starts each year in late August with a group stage. The group stage consists of two paths: one with teams playing in the

Eerste Klasse The Eerste Klasse ( en, First Class) started as the 1st tier of football in the Netherlands and is now the 6th tier. The league is divided into eleven divisions, six for Saturday clubs and five for Sunday clubs. These divisions correspond to the s ...

and

Tweede Klasse The Tweede Klasse ( en, Second Class) is the seventh tier of football in the Netherlands and the fifth tier of Dutch amateur football. The league is divided into 22 divisions, 10 played on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. Each division consists of 14 t ...

, and one with the others. In the Eerste Klasse and Tweede Klasse path, teams who are playing in the same league cannot play each other. This may cause that teams from different districts are put in the same group. The group winners and runners-up qualify for the knockout stage. In the path containing all other teams, teams from the same league can play each other. Regionalisation is applied as much as possible, also taking the level of teams into account. Only the group winners qualify from the next round. In the first knock-out round, the paths are merged and teams from the Hoofdklasse enter. If a match ends in a draw, there will be no extra time played and the match goes to a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

. Extra time is played in the Final before a possible penalty shoot-out. From the knockout stage, teams can get a bye if they are left over after the draw is made. If needed, an intermediate round will be played to narrow the number of teams down to 16 before the round of 16 is played.

Qualification for the KNVB Cup

All the semi-finalists of all the district cups (24 in total) qualify for the

of the next season. If a team qualify for the Cup in multiple ways (promoting to the Derde Divisie and reaching the semi-finals of the District Cup), if a team is not eligible to enter the KNVB Cup (a reserve team), or does not enter because of any other reason, a

lucky loser A lucky loser is a sports competitor (player or team) who loses a match in a knockout tournament or loses in qualifying, but who then enters the main draw, usually when another competitor withdraws during the tournament because of illness, injury ...

among the losing quarter-finalists is determined by: If a reserve team comes out as the lucky loser, the team will be ignored and the next team in the ranking will be eligible to enter. In 2020, this scheme was used to determine the qualifiers for the 2020–21 KNVB Cup, since all the Dutch league and cup competitions were abandoned due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands The COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The virus reached the Netherlands on 27 February 2020, when its first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Tilburg. It involved a 56-year-old Dutchman ...

and none of the six district cups reached the semi-final stage yet.

History

The cup competition, which started in the 1959–1960 season, initially saw a separation between Saturday clubs and Sunday clubs, who played in separate cup competitions. This separation was abolished in 1980; Saturday clubs and Sunday clubs from one district now play for the one cup of that district. The

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

s of professional football clubs played in the District Cup competitions until 1997 when the

KNVB Reserve Cup The KNVB Reserve Cup ( nl, KNVB Beker voor beloften) is a cup competition for the reserve teams of professional football clubs in the Netherlands. The winner qualifies for next year's KNVB Cup; if the cup winner is also the champion in the na ...

was established. In order to minimize the number of match days, between 2003 and 2006 the final eight teams in the district cups were divided into two groups. They played each other in group matches of 2 halves of 20 minutes, with all group matches played on the same day. The winners of the two groups qualified for the final.

Competition format

Qualification for the KNVB Cup

History

Recent winners

References

See also