38 Ethnic sorting in football Surinamese, Antillean, Indonesian and Middle and Eastern European backgrounds end up being below the participation of Turkish and Moroccan citizens, with the participation of the previous two being around the average levels of participation, while the participation of the latter two is substantially lower but can be better explained by other reasons. All in all, ethnic prejudice and discrimination do not seem to substantially structure participation of ethnic minority groups. To be clear, by this I do not wish to claim that members do not experience and/or suffer from prejudice or discrimination in sports. On the basis of the results presented in this study, it is solely argued that ethnic prejudice and discrimination cannot account for ethnic disparities in membership of amateur football clubs. But a matter of preference The last explanation for differences in ethnic participation in sports in general and amateur football specifically is that ethnic groups tend to vary in their sport preferences and ambitions. While interest in football spans the entire globe, it is not equally developed as a recreational and elite sport in every part of the world. Through socialization by family members and stereotypical images, ethnic minority groups could differ in the extent to which they are encouraged to participate in amateur football. This was formulated as the fifth expectation of this chapter. We find substantial support for this expectation in the participation figures of people with a non-Muslim Asian and Oceanian background. Over 40% of Dutch citizens who fall within this category originate from China. The Chinese population in the Netherlands does relatively well in economic and educational terms and experiences less stigmatization than various other ethnic minority groups (Gijsberts, Huijnk, & Vogels, 2014). Despite this, representation of nonMuslim Asian and Oceanian citizens is among the lowest of all groups. Liang (2016) notes that organized amateur football has been relatively underdeveloped in China and a community-based football culture has been lacking. Additionally, as a recreational sport, football in China faces strong competition from very popular sports such as table tennis, badminton and basketball. It is therefore likely that Dutch Chinese citizens experience relatively little socialization into amateur football within the family. On top of that, stereotypical images of Asians and sports cater much more towards sports such as table tennis and badminton, in which they dominate on the elite level, than
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