Race, ethnicity, whiteness and mediated stereotypes in football coaching. The Dutch context

Previous studies have concluded that minority ethnic groups are significantly underrepresented in the coaching and leadership tiers of the professional football game across Europe (Bradbury et al., 2018). This chapter will focus on the Dutch context. The aim of the chapter is twofold: (1) provide data on the number of minority ethnic coaches in Dutch men’s professional football, and (2) give more insights into the possible reasons for the underrepresentation of minority ethnic coaches in professional football in the Netherlands. Results show how minority ethnic coaches are underrepresented in the three highest divisions of Dutch professional football. A variety of mechanisms can be identified to explain this underrepresentation, amongst other things the implicit mechanisms of racial/ethnic exclusion and discrimination, the inclusivity/exclusivity of networks, the role of stereotypes and lack of role models, and the operation of whiteness and playing down of oppositional racial/ethnic identities. A cultural studies perspective combined with insights from Critical Race Theory and whiteness studies will be used to interpret the findings. Results will be placed in a wider international perspective.