The first decision made by Amsterdam’s new mayor Eberhard van der Laan was to make sure the capital would host the homecoming celebrations for the Dutch national football team when it returns from South Africa.

A spokesperson for the mayor said “We spend a year on preparations for Queen’s Day, which is visited by 750,000 people. Now we have five days to set up a celebration for a million people.”

If the Dutch team beats Spain in Sunday’s World Cup final, a million people are expected to come to watch the footballers as they are taken by boat down Amsterdam’s famous canals to Museum Square. If the team loses, the canal tour will be scrapped.

House boats
The city council has inspected the route which starts at a navy base. There are only nine houseboats en route, they have all been photographed and filmed in case of any damage. During the 1988 European Championship celebrations, so many people stood on the houseboats that a number of them sank. [Watch the 1988 video below, 44 seconds from the start, ed]. Two bridges will also be closed to the public as they are not able to hold masses of people.

 
The Rijksmuseum has decided to close on Tuesday during the celebrations, and the Van Gogh museum too will remain shut. Both museums will hang huge banners in front of the buildings adding to the atmosphere. The orange banner put up on the Van Gogh on Friday reads “Good luck, Orange!”. The Rijksmuseum banner will have a six-by-six-metre photo of little Princess Amalia blowing a vuvuzela.

Crowd trouble
Extra measures will be taken to make sure the crowds are kept under control. Three football hooligans, who assaulted police officers after last Tuesday’s semi-final, will be kept behind bars for the final until after the celebrations in the capital. In the Dutch daily Trouw, former mayor Ed van Thijn warned that it is essential to make sure the footballers get to where they are supposed to be on time. “An impatient crowd is dangerous,” he says.

28 June 1988 saw the biggest spontaneous celebration since the liberation of the Netherlands at the end of World War II, when hundreds of thousands of people lined the canals to watch the triumphant team pass by in an open top canal boat. Once they finally reached Museum Square, Ruud Gullit had to ask the crowd to step back as the people in front were getting squashed.

Tickets and flights to the final are just about sold out. Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende will attend the match in the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg.

Bible belt
Huge screens will be placed in city squares up and down the country so that people can watch the final outside. It can even be viewed in 3D at cinemas. Visitors to cultural events like the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Over het IJ fringe theatre festival will also make sure their visitors can watch.

But not everybody will be watching the match. In some towns in the Dutch bible belt watching TV on a Sunday is strictly not allowed. And the orthodox Christian paper the Reformatorisch Dagblad will not be reporting on the game as it is being played on the Lord’s day.

Broadcasting rights
Meanwhile questions are being asked in parliament how the Dutch football association (KNVB) has managed to sell exclusive rights to broadcast Tuesday's celebration to commercial television station SBS6. Christian Democrat MP Joop Atsma says it’s a public event, made possible by the city council and should be broadcast by all media.

"The KNVB is playing with fire. The authorities are making the celebration possible and that costs a lot of time and money at a time when cuts are being made in the police force as well as elsewhere. It is strange that the KNVB is asking money for the broadcasting rights."