Etnic Sorting in football

Sports clubs and certainly amateur football clubs have become increasingly diverse in terms of ethnic composition in recent decades. So far, no large-scale research has been conducted on the consequences of this. For his PhD research, Arend van Haaften studied data on football club membership of over two million Dutch people over a ten-year period. On Friday 20 December Arend van Haaften successfully defended his PhD thesis  Ethnic sorting in football. A quantitative analysis of ethnicity and membership in Dutch amateur football at the Utrecht University School of Governance (USG). Preference for club with relatively many members of own ethnic background. Van Haaften shows that ethnic background plays a decisive role in the likelihood of people becoming and staying members of a football club. Members of all backgrounds prefer a club with relatively many members of their own ethnic background and, in addition, few ethnic differences between members.