Soccer Nationalism: Ecuador and the World Cup

MAXIMILIAN VIATORI Iowa State University

Figure 1. Caption: A motorcycle fan with his head shaved in a soccer ball pattern, Quito. Photo by author.

occer is just soccer, right? Wrong, replied Spanish journalist Enric Gonzlez who covered the Italian soccer league for Spains largest newspaper El Pais from 2003 to 2007. Soccer is more than a public exhibition of athletic skillit is an integral part of many nations collective memory (Gonzlez 2007:24). Anthropologists have also noted the importance of soccer for symbolizing local identities and displaying national pride. For example, Alessandra Miklavcic (2008) demonstrates that a recent soccer match between Italy and Slovenia reignited nationalist passions and historical grudges over the countries shared border. In Australia, Loring Danforth (2001) shows that soccer has been an important vehicle for the expresCity & Society, Vol. 20, Issue 2, pp. 275281, ISSN 0893-0465, eISSN 1548-744X. 2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-744X.2008.00020.x.

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sion of competing versions of nationalism. According to Danforth, traditional elites have used soccer to further a narrative of Australia as a racially homogenous nation by banning ethnic soccer clubsthose associated with different immigrant populationsfrom playing in the National League. In contrast, the owners of these clubs have argued that their teams are vital symbols of Australias multicultural nationalism. In a similar vein, Ecuadors qualication for the 2006 World Cup marked an important moment for narrating the nation in this small South American country (Bhabha 1990). Soccer has a long history in Ecuador and represents an important aspect of social life. The Federation of Ecuadorian Soccer was founded in 1925 and the country now has more than twenty professional clubs divided into two Figure 2. Caption: A homeless boy plays soccer in front of an expensive Quito leagues. No other sport comshopping center. Photo by author. petes with soccer for dominance; the national teams games are consistently the most-watched television programs in Ecuador, sometimes drawing as much as 90 percent of the countrys viewers (Radcliffe and Westwood 1996:93). Despite Ecuadors love affair with soccer, the country has struggled to compete against soccer giants like Argentina, Uruguay and the perennially dominant Brazil. Ecuadors best nish in the Copa America, the longest running soccer tournament in South America, was fourth place in 1993. Before 2006, Ecuador qualied only once for the World Cuplosing two of its three games during the 2002 competition hosted by South Korea and Japan. In contrast, Brazil has qualied for every Soccer World Cup and won the tournaments golden trophy a record ve times.1 Ecuadors 2006 tournament berth sparked public celebrations across the country as well as declarations by politicians and pundits that the Ecuadorian teams success represented the countrys future; one in which renewed national unity would enable it to compete on the global playing eld (El Comercio 2006a; 2006d). This was an appealing message after two decades of structural adjustment programs led the country into an economic crisis, which reached an apex in 1999 when Ecuadors largest banks collapsed.2 Coverage of the World Cup dominated the front pages of Ecuadors most prominent newspaper, the conservative El Comercio, and
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Soccer Nationalism: Ecuador and the World Cup

Figure 3. Caption: Celebrating Ecuadors win against Costa Rica, boys in a poor neighborhood in the provincial city of Puyo play soccer in the street long after sunset. Photo by author.

editorials admonished the countrys citizens to put aside the race and class differences that had impeded national unication. One article reported that Indigenous communities in several northern provinces had suspended their celebration of Inti Raymithe solsticeto watch the playoff game between Ecuador and England (El Comercio 2006f). Another praised residents in the community of Juncalthe home town of Ecuadors star veteran player, Agustn Delgadowho forgot their poverty, [and] lack of basic services and got animated for the team (El Comercio 2006e). Then interim President Alfredo Palacio even joined the party, showing off a jersey signed by the Ecuadorian team. After Ecuador advanced to the playoffs, he granted an asueto (little holiday) so that Ecuadorians could celebrate with a shortened work day. Proclamations of national unity during the World Cup were little more than thinly-veiled political rhetoric, however. After declaring his support for World Cup celebrations, the President quickly dispatched 20,000 police with helicopters to monitor the revelers, many of whom gathered in the same places where protestors called for the removal of Palacios predecessor the year before (El Comercio 2006b).3 The 2006 Soccer World Cup provided an important moment for Ecuadors elites to reassert a narrative of Ecuadorian nationalism rooted in internal homogeneity, one that conveniently glossed over differences in race and gender. In 1998, Ecuador revised its constitution to recognize the countrys multiethnic make-up. Nonetheless, some whitemestizo elites have continued to resist the idea of ethnic and racial plurality as a basis for national identity, defending their privileged position in Ecuadorian society. Yet the fact that most of Ecuadors star World Cup players were Afro-Ecuadorian undermined visions of
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Ecuador as a homogenous nation. According to Jean Muteba Rahier (2008:622), white-mestizos dealt with this visible contradiction by ignoring the race of Ecuadors players in published commentary on the World Cup. Journalists and bloggers focused almost exclusively on aspects of the sport that appeared to index white-mestizo society, thus perpetuating the ofcial invisibility of blackness in the Ecuadorian nation. Likewise, celebrations of soccer as a symbol of Ecuadorian identity quietly naturalized the national as a decidedly male space. Soccer is considered a masculine sport in Ecuador Figure 4. Caption: A recent college graduate displays his ofcial team jersey at the and throughout much of Latin hotel where he works near downtown Quito. Photo by author. America (e.g. Magazine 2007). The majority of players and fans at all levels of the game are men, as the photos in this essay attest. As such, declaring soccer a source of national character largely excluded women from active participation in the nationas-a-game. One reporter remarked that after Ecuadors win against Costa Rica, fans took to the streets, quickly melding into rivers of yellow, red and blue (the national colors) Figure 5. Caption: Local news stations cover festivities on Amazonas Avenue, Quito, where the differences among following Ecuadors win against Costa Rica. Photo by author. them vanished (El Comercio 2006b). Besides reproducing race and gender inequalities, World Cup celebrations renewed class inequalities in subtle but noticeable ways. The Ecuadorian national jerseyaccording to the aforementioned reporter, a symbol of country and team second only to the agacted as a token of difference as much as an emblem of unity. The ofcially-sanctioned jersey, produced
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by Marathon Sports (an Ecuadorian-based multinational), retailed for US $29.90 in upscale malls in Ecuadors largest cities. In a country where 51 percent of the population lives below the poverty line (most of whom are Indigenous), and the average monthly salary in 2006 was US $237, this symbol of national identity was hardly accessible to most (El Comercio 2006c).4 While a small number of upper and middle class Ecuadorians engaged in acts of patriotic consumption, buying Marathon shirts for themselves and relatives abroad, most settled for cheap knockoffs sold on street corners and open air markets for a few dollars (El Comercio 2006c). In the end, rather than disappearing into a yellow clad utopia, fans were distinguished in ways that echoed enduring disparities within the Ecuadorian nation state.

Soccer Nationalism: Ecuador and the World Cup

Figure 6. Caption: World Cup soccer on TV, Quito. Photo by author.

Figure 7. Caption: The day after Ecuador lost to England and was knocked out of the playoffs an Indigenous shoeshine boy watches as the ag is raised over a military exercise in front of the national capitol, Quito. Photo by author.

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Notes
Acknowledgments. I owe special thanks to Travis Hartman for his help editing and selecting the nal photographs for this essay. Argentina and Uruguay have each won the World Cup twice. Forment (2007) provides an important look at the role that soccer has played in Argentinas local politics following that countrys nancial crisis in 2001. 3 Ecuadors previous president, Lucio Gutirrez, was removed from ofce in April 2005 by mass protests against his policies of neoliberal economic adjustment and heavy-handed clientelism in national politics. He completed less than three years of his four year term and was replaced by his Vice President, Palacio. Felipe Burbano de Lara (2005) provides a good overview of the April protests. 4 See devdata.worldbank.org for statistics on Ecuadors annual GNI.
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Forment, Carlos A. 2007 The Democratic Dribbler: Football Clubs, Neoliberal Globalization, and Buenos Aires Municipal Election of 2003. Public Culture 19(1):85116. Gonzlez, Enric 2007 Historias del Calcio: Una crnica de Italia a travs del Ftbol (Soccer Tales: A Chronicle of Italy through Football). Barcelona: RBA Libros, S.A. Magazine, Roger 2007 Golden and Blue like My Heart: Masculinity, Youth, and Power among Soccer Fans in Mexico City. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Miklavcic, Alessandra 2008 Slogans and Grafti: Postmemory among Youth in the Italo-Slovenian Borderland. American Ethnologist 35(3):440453. Radcliffe, Sarah and Sallie Westwood 1996 Remaking the Nation: Place, Identity and Politics in Latin America. London and New York: Routledge. Rahier, Jean Muteba 2008 El Mundial del Ftbol 2006 y la Seleccin Ecuatoriana: Discurso de Alteridad en la Internet y en la Prensa (The 2006 Soccer World Cup and the Ecuadorian Team: Discourse of Alterity on the Internet and in the Press). Discurso & Sociedad 2(3):609641.

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