Professional football players in the Netherlands widely use snus - nicotine pouches you place under the lip. Club doctors consider this worrying and unprofessional, AD reports.

Following comments by former footballer Michiel Kramer on the show Vandaag Inside about how many footballers use the substance, AD decided to investigate. A survey showed that a great many professional players use snus. Not all of them, but sometimes several players per club. According to players, snus helps them relax amidst the demanding life of a professional athlete.

“You usually see the effects immediately,” Luuk Wouters, club doctor at FC Den Bosch, told the newspaper. “Their pupils constrict, their faces tighten; with some you can see their legs shaking.”

“It is comparable to smoking, but without coating your lungs in tar,” Wouters said. He finds the use of this addictive substance incompatible with the lifestyle of an elite athlete. "If you were to use snus for the first time at the dosages some players use, you’d get heart palpitations... Yet they need increasingly higher doses to feel that rush."

“This is an issue that has been going on for a while,” Joost van der Hoek, the club doctor for Feyenoord and chair of the Board of Club Doctors and Consultants, told the newspaper. “It’s a challenge for us. Unfortunately, we’re seeing it among youth players too… Naturally, this is an issue in secondary schools as well.”

The public health institute RIVM has been discouraging the use of snus since 2021, warning that the pouches can trigger and sustain a nicotine addiction. “Nicotine is harmful to the nervous system—especially at high doses—and can cause heart rhythm disorders,” the RIVM warns, adding that nicotine can also hamper the development of the young brain.

Most clubs follow the RIVM’s line and discourage players from using snus. Some go even further. During AD’s inquiries, multiple people told the site that Almere City FC enforces a zero-tolerance policy for snus use.

Jos Bes, general director of Almere City FC, told AD that his club banned the substance about 18 months ago. “It turned out that several players were using it.” The club held a presentation in which a club doctor and performance coach stressed that snus was counterproductive and that the club would not tolerate its use.

“We enforce that policy too,” Bes said. “It is impossible for players to use snus openly at the club.” He added that he doesn't know what players do at home, but he assumes they do their best to excel in their career.