Team Nederland Roller Derby unites the Netherlands’ top roller derby skaters to compete on the world stage and represent the nation as members of the 2025 World Cup charter.
Our aim is to unite our unique skills, talents, and passion for the sport to engage in high-level gameplay with other national teams from across the globe.
As skaters, we are committed to upholding the spirit of the sport from its revolutionary roots to its values of equity, fairness, and inclusivity. Thus, we strive to maintain a culture of competitiveness in which we will all empower each other, play our very best, have fun, and represent the Dutch roller derby community with pride.
The current team consists of 20 skaters and 6 reserves from 10 different leagues from across the country, preparing for participation in the fourth Roller Derby World Cup, which will take place in Innsbruck from 3 to 6 July 2025.
These skaters meet monthly to train together, in addition to playing games and scrimmages against other–mostly national teams. They also work behind the scenes on marketing, merchandise, and fundraising for the team. Since roller derby is traditionally a DIY sport, skaters are collectively responsible for these tasks, in addition to self-funding their gear, travel, and dues.
Previous editions of the Roller Derby World cup took place in 2011 in Toronto, Canada, in 2014 Dallas, US and in 2018 Manchester, UK. Team Nederland competed in 2014 and 2018.
In many sports the women’s team gets the prefix “women,” but in derby it is the men who generally get that prefix. This is mainly due to the fact that modern roller derby was primarily pioneered by women. Nowadays, people of all genders play, but in many cases a distinction is still made between derby and men’s derby.
In short, Team Nederland (and the Roller Derby World Cup) follows the WFTDA gender policy, which is quite broad: a person may skate on a WFTDA team if women’s flat track roller derby is the version of roller derby with which they most identify. This means WFTDA and Roller Derby World Cup teams are open to cis women, trans women, intersex people, and non-binary people. Diversity, inclusion and self-identification are very important within roller derby.
WFTDA (Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Association) is the largest governing body of roller derby. The MRDA, the Men’s Roller Derby Association, has no gender-related rules and allows skaters of all gender identities to play
There is currently no active men’s team at this time. This will probably be restarted when a Men’s Roller Derby World Cup is announced. The Netherlands has participated in all previous editions of the Men’s Roller Derby World Cup.
Roller derby is an amateur sport worldwide. There are some skaters at the highest level who earn money through coaching and hosting clinics, but there are no full-time professional derby players. Skaters run their own leagues, and even at the national level they arrange everything themselves, from training venues to media coverage and sponsorships. Team Nederland skaters, coaches and volunteers therefore pay and do everything themselves.
Team Nederland therefore has a sponsor- and fundraising committee, that tries to mobilise as much financial aid as possible to finance everything around the World Cup and the journey toward it.
The sport comes from the US, so the jargon is mostly in English. In addition, the sport is very diverse, and most Dutch teams draw skaters from different countries around the world. English is therefore convenient as the lingua franca of the sport.
Selection: 26 skaters
Age: between 27 and 52
Home clubs:
Amsterdam Roller Derby – Amsterdam (2)
Arnhem Fallen Angels – Arnhem (1)
Black Sheep Honey Rollers – Middelburg (1)
Dom City Roller Derby – Utrecht (4)
Parliament of Pain – The Hague (1)
Rockcity Rollers – Eindhoven (1)
Roller Derby Breda – Breda (2)
Roller Derby Groningen – Groningen (2)
Roller Derby Twente – Enschede/Hengelo (1)
Rotterdam Roller Derby – Rotterdam (11)
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