Vitesse Arnhem – The Club
Vitesse Arnhem, commonly known as Vitesse, is a Dutch professional football club based in the city of Arnhem. The club was founded in 1892 and plays its home matches at the GelreDome stadium, which has a capacity of 34,000 spectators and was the first football stadium in the world to have a removable pitch. The pitch rolls out after every match and the club has only replaced its pitch last year, fourteen years after the stadium was first used. Vitesse are also well known for the Eagle Hertog, which is released before the match and flies over the crowds.
Vitesse has a strong youth academy and has produced many talented players who have gone on to play for top clubs in the Netherlands and abroad. The club has had some success in domestic competitions, winning the KNVB Cup in 2017 and finishing as runners-up in the Eredivisie in 1998.
Vitesse is also known for its ownership structure, as it is one of the few professional football clubs in the Netherlands to be owned by a foreign company. Since 2010, the club has been owned by Russian energy company Gazprom, which has helped to fund the development of the club’s youth academy and training ground
