Chapter 6. Ethnicity matters 121 ethnic segregation between associations and ensures that an important part of interethnic contact takes place between clubs rather than within clubs. At the same time, however, we saw that in the long term, ethnic segregation between clubs has been decreasing and that associations are becoming increasingly diverse. An important explanation for this is the steady decline in the number of football associations. As a result, a growing member population must be divided among an ever-smaller number of clubs. Club heterogeneity leads to dropout Chapter 4 focused on the relationship between club composition and member dropout by posing the research question: ‘Does the ethnic heterogeneity of amateur football clubs affect member dropout?’ The results showed that in ethnically heterogeneous associations, members drop out significantly faster than in ethnically homogeneous associations. There are two explanations for this. The most important explanation is that similarity in ethnic background breeds connection. Because in ethnically diverse associations, the relative proportion of members with the same ethnic background is lower than in homogeneous associations, members drop out faster. The second explanation is that a high degree of internal differences complicates social interaction and coordination. This too, will result in members terminating their membership more quickly. While I found that members with a migration background on average leave clubs significantly faster than their Dutch counterparts, a key finding is that this difference can almost be entirely explained by the ethnic composition of those clubs. These findings are at odds with cultural explanations for ethnic differences in membership. Namely, members with a Dutch and migration background in fact have roughly the same dropout chances, but the average composition of clubs is more attuned to members with Dutch backgrounds. No ethnic sorting in club transfers Finally, in chapter 5, I explored whether members transfer to clubs with more favourable ethnic compositions. To this end I asked the following question: ‘To what extent are transfers of members between clubs related to differences between clubs’ ethnic compositions?’ The results indicated that when members switch between clubs, they on average do not move to more homogeneous clubs or clubs with a higher degree of ethnic peers. This suggests that differences in ethnic composition between clubs do not drive additional ethnic sorting via
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