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The Eredivisie (English: Honor Division), often referred to as the Holland Casino Eredivisie for sponsorship reasons, is the the highest football league in the Netherlands. The top division consists of 18 clubs from the 2004-05 season. Each club plays every other club twice during the season, once at home and once away. As do several other leagues in continental Europe, the Eredivisie takes a month-long winter break, covering the Christmas and New Year's holiday season. Each team plays every other team once in the first half of the season; the second half sees the same order of fixtures, but in the opposing stadium (e.g., if Ajax and PSV play in the season's second round in Amsterdam in the first half of the season, the second-half fixture will be played in the second round after the break in Eindhoven).
At the end of each season, the bottom club is automatically relegated to the second level of the Dutch league system, the Eerste divisie (First Division), with the winner of the Eerste divisie automatically promoted to the Eredivisie. The next two clubs from the bottom of the Eredivisie go to separate promotion/relegation playoffs, each with one Eredivisie club and three high-placed clubs from the Eerste divisie. In both promotion/relegation playoffs, each club plays a home-and-home series with each other club. The winner of each playoff plays in the following season's Eredivisie, with the other teams going to the Eerste divisie.
Ajax Amsterdam has won the most titles, 29. PSV Eindhoven is next with 17, and Feyenoord Rotterdam follows with 14. Since 1965, these three giants have won all but one title.
Champions
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