Why are football hooligans going to interview cancer patients? Was the public inquiry into the financial crisis worth it? Is the Defence Ministry just a kid in a sweet shop? Can a Protestant minister claim God doesn’t exist? And what’s behind the bumper-car ban at the fun fair?

Football hooligans find out what cancer really means
De Telegraaf reports that 16 supporters of football team AZ have been given a notable choice: face a nine-month stadium ban or interview cancer patients. Their punishment comes because they were found guilty of chanting offensive slogans featuring the word 'cancer' at a recent match. Even more cruelly, their taunts were directed at Ajax player Demy de Zeeuw, whose mother has been diagnosed with the disease.

References to illness are very much a part of swearing in the Dutch language. Recently a high-profile campaign was launched to make people more aware of how hurtful such insults can be to cancer sufferers and those close to them.

A spokeswoman for the Dutch Cancer Society tells AD: "We think it's sad that a football player whose nearest and dearest is suffering from cancer has to leave the pitch with his fingers in his ears ... By proposing this alternative punishment, our aim is to show these lads the suffering that accompanies this disease. We want to stop the word 'cancer' being abused like this."

So what did cause the financial crisis?
Yesterday was the final day of public testimony in the Dutch inquiry into the causes of the financial crisis, but the press don’t seem particularly convinced about the success of the endeavour. Trouw devotes its entire front page to the closing testimony by the head of the Dutch Central Bank, Nout Wellink, and Finance Minister Wouter Bos but is forced to conclude that “the committee is left with a great many questions”. It adds worryingly that “2.5 years after the start of the crisis, we still can’t do much more than hope that the next crisis will wait until the transformation of the financial sector and supervision is complete”.

De Volkskrant believes “only the committee itself is satisfied … The idea was that well-earned calm could now descend upon society” but “after 50 hours of testimony from 42 leading figures, the committee will still not be able to close this book”. It notes that many of the highlights from the hearings didn’t really have much to do with the root of the crisis, but focused on other high-profile scandals, such as the disastrous takeover of Dutch flagship bank ABN AMRO.

De Volkskrant illustrates what it sees as the committee’s lack of focus by citing its decision to have former Labour prime minister Wim Kok testify on the massive bonuses given to ING bosses, even though he had only just joined the bank’s supervisory board at the time. “Many other former ING commissioners would have been able to give far more information but the committee opted to have a go at the former Labour leader instead.”

Auditors stoke defence spending row
A story that has been running for years in the Netherlands is the country’s attempts to replace its F-16 fighter planes with a new generation of aircraft. The choice of the US-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a recurring political hot potato and nearly caused the government to fall last year. The Netherlands Court of Audit has been following developments surrounding the purchase, and its latest report is not good news for the powers that be. NRC Handelsblad sketches the government’s position as that of “a kid in a sweet shop who puts his money on the counter and asks ‘how much can I get for that?’”.

According to NRC, the report accuses the government of focusing solely on the JSF at the expense of all other alternatives without even producing a solid good calculation of how many aircraft it requires to fulfil its strategic needs. That’s an alarming prospect when you consider that the project will swallow up almost 25 percent of the Dutch defence budget in the decades to come. The paper also points out that the F-35 is still under development and that things are not going at all well: the latest US estimates suggest it could take an extra two years and cost an extra 3.6 billion dollars.

No wonder de Volkskrant dubs the JSF “the arms deal of the century”. While members of the opposition continue to warn that “we shouldn’t get sucked into a swamp” and to argue that “the plug should be pulled”, the paper’s editorial wonders if “the decision wasn’t actually taken a long time ago” and that “perhaps the best the Netherlands can hope for is to limit the financial damage as much as possible.”

Minister not barred for “atheist” views
Trouw reports that the Netherlands is still living up to its age-old reputation for religious tolerance. A Protestant church in Zeeland has ruled that one of its ministers, Klaas Hendrikse, can continue to preach even though he’s been labelled “an atheist”. An internal inquiry was ordered after conservative church members balked at the minister’s publication of a book entitled Believing in a God that doesn’t exist in which he argued that God does not exist but “happens”.

Tension mounted within the church, with the minister refusing to defend himself at a local session because he no longer wished to be branded “a suspect”. The church has now concluded that the minister’s words do not damage the foundation of the church and “can be seen as part of the theological debate”. It looks as if they haven’t entirely succeeded in papering over the cracks, however. The offending minister himself responds by saying “If my view is allowed, then there’s something wrong with the foundations of the church.”

All the fun of the fair?
“The dodgems are in the bad books” is the headline in de Volkskrant, referring to municipal clampdowns that are threatening to spoil the fun at the fair. In Den Bosch and Maastricht they’ve banned the bumper-car attraction to prevent local youths hanging around causing problems.

Apparently the attraction is a magnet for boisterous youngsters. One fairground operator explains the appeal: “The dodgems have been the social centre of the fair for 90 years. It’s an open attraction where everyone can stand around and watch. And it’s cheap.”

A spokesman for the fairground business is up in arms: “What’s the world coming to? A funfair without dodgems just isn’t a funfair. They’re ripping the heart out of our business.” His concerns are echoed by some local politicians: “Instead of banning the troublemakers, the local authority is beating a cowardly retreat to avoid the problem. We say: bring back the dodgems … now!”