The making of an ethnically diverse management: contested cultural meanings in a Dutch amateur football club

This paper discusses ethnographic research on the planned transition from an all-white Dutch management towards an ethnically diverse management of an amateur football club. This study is based on a 3-year period of ethnographic fieldwork in a football club, located in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood in the Netherlands. We argue that the transition led to contested understandings of cultural practices and artefacts within the club. The meaning-making processes of the club's organizational culture reinforced us-them divisions between the two groups. What is at stake is the symbolic ownership of the club that comes from a deep-rooted desire among members of the club to be 'among themselves'. Findings suggest that apparent equity in terms of shared participation in the club's management does not necessarily lead to bridging of ethnic differences on the level of the club's culture.