The KNVB District Cup (Dutch: Districtsbeker) is a cup competition for amateur football clubs in the Netherlands. The competition is held in each of the six districts of the Royal Dutch Football Association. The 24 semi-finalists qualify for next-seasons KNVB Cup. The winners of the six cup competitions used to contest for the KNVB Amateur Cup, but that cup was abolished in 2016.[1]
Teams eligible for the competition are:
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 and Tweede Klasse, 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. 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.
All the semi-finalists of all the district cups (24 in total) qualify for the KNVB Cup 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 among the losing quarter-finalists is determined by:
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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 and none of the six district cups reached the semi-final stage yet.
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 teams of professional football clubs played in the District Cup competitions until 1997 when the KNVB Reserve Cup 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.
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