Race/ethnicity, sport and the research/policy relationship. The Dutch context

Orange fever pushes aside the public debate about integration and finally creates one nation. If one puts an Iraqi, a Moroccan, an Italian and a German together in the same small room to watch football, and if one adds a few lines of the national anthem, some orange decorations and four goals, the result is integration in optima forma. (cited in Hilkens, 2008, p. 2)
This quotation comes from an article in the popular free Dutch Newspaper De Pers [The Press] during the European football championships, 2008. The article headed ‘Allez Orange: Und jetzt sind wir alle Holländer’. The heading as well as the text of the article refers to the 4–1 win of the Dutch football team over the French team during Euro 2008. The anthem in the quotation refers to the Dutch national anthem with ‘orange’ being the colour and the symbol of the Dutch nation and Dutch national sport teams. The quotation obviously draws on the idea that Dutch inhabitants, whether they are Dutch, Moroccan, Turkish, Surinamese, French or German, all feel one people during Euro 2008 in their support of and affection for the Dutch national team (‘Orange fever’). The quotation, in other words, presents the Dutch men’s football team as a demonstrable proof of the power of sport to unite and reflects the widespread belief in the Netherlands in the integrative function of sport.