I amsterdam - Sports

Sports in Society 
Some 140,000 people belong to one of the 800 sports clubs based in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam football clubs alone boast more than 25,000 members and at least 18,000 people belong to a tennis club. Another 5,000 people are members of hockey and bridge clubs. There are smaller clubs as well, some of them with just a few hundred members, as is the case for sports such as rugby or fencing. Amsterdam has more than enough clubs to choose from, and offers a range of some 55 different sports.

Municipal Support
The Amsterdam municipal authorities back participation in sport in a number of ways, supporting both top-class sport and ‘sport for all’. The district authorities are responsible for building, maintaining and running the ‘sport for all’ facilities. The central city authorities take care of the cohesion within the sport infrastructure as a whole.

The sport policy deployed by the central city authorities focuses heavily on stimulating public participation in sport. Activities designed to encourage the people of Amsterdam to take part in sports particularly aim to reach young people and people with special needs.
The Sports Incentive Policy is laid down in a policy document entitled: ‘Resultaat door Samenspel’.

Jeugdsport in beweging is a project that provides a range of sports to primary schools. Topscore provides weekly training sessions in a whole range of sports in high schools. The Aangepast sporten project helps people with special needs or a chronic disorder to participate in a sport.

Renovation and New Sports Facilities
Since 1998, a special subsidy scheme (the Sportaccommodatiefonds) has been in place for financing renovations or new building work on sports centres. Money from this scheme was used to finance the building of the Sloterparkbad swimming pool in the Geuzenveld/Slotermeer district, for example.

Social Development
The municipal authorities issue public information on the various sports facilities in Amsterdam via the Sport and Recreation Department and the Social Development Service. In this way, they hope to encourage more people to participate in a sport. 

Postal address: Postbus 1840
1000 BV Amsterdam 

Visiting address: Weesperstraat 101