Title: Performing identities: Stadiums, fans & players in club football

Author: S Chandrashekar

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Football: The pitch

On 30 September 2017, Pontus Jansson – who plays club football for Leeds United
in England - was speaking to reporters at a routine press conference.

He said: “We have to go out there like 11 animals and prepare for a war because
that’s what it’s going to be.” (Press conference by Pontus Jansson, 2017)

Professional sport is no stranger to hyperbole – fist-pumping, intimidating

behaviour, and expletive-filled rants are a common sight. But while Jansson’s
sentiment may seem a little extreme to some, football fans will identify with that
passion… and fans of Leeds United more so than others.

And that is because football is a rather special sport.

Football is one of the most popular sports in the world and, because of that, it is
also an organised social activity that offers social groups and communities a
chance to collectively express and defend (fight for) an identity.

It doesn’t do this by simply bringing fans of certain clubs together once or twice a
week, plonking them down in a stadium and allowing them to scream together;
although a stadium is a shared (and physical) manifestation of that identity.

It does this by allowing groups and communities the chance to project emotional
and historical baggage on to animate (football players and fans) and inanimate
(stadiums) structures.

And it does so by being part of a history that survives over generations, passed
down from parent to child, allowing for the writing of a narrative filled with
legends and myths that speak to the defence of that identity.

A simple but highly effective method of beginning to understand how this works is
to see football as Emile Durkheim saw religion.
Durkheim’s view of religion – ‘something eminently social’ and something he built
on the idea of a totem – was that of a social construct… something individual men
and women came together to create and something which helped them make
sense of their environments.
Page | 1
And his idea of a religion as ‘collective representations which express collective
realities’ (Durkheim 1965: 10) approximates to how football is viewed by
collectively by football fans and by fans of different clubs.

All of this is just a fancy way of saying that for millions of people, football is a
(quasi?)-religious experience and partaking in that ritual adds substantial meaning
to their lives; it is a frame of reference that helps process ‘real world’ issues.

Almost everything at, about and connected to a football game – particularly those
involving older and more storied clubs and communities – is a representation of
those ‘real world’ issues, be they social, cultural, political, religious or economic.

That act of representation – of mirroring - is what this text is concerned with, and
to do so this text borrows as much from journalism as it does from sociology; it
emphasises emotion and story-telling as much as it is based on theory.

Football: Power to the people

We start with the referendum held in September 2017 in southern Spain – by the
government of the autonomous province of Catalonia.

The political details of the region’s bid for independence (and its fallout, which is
set to run for some time) have been documented by domestic (Spanish and
Catalonian) and international press.

What this text is concerned with is the link between the history and weight of
emotion that drives Catalonia’s bid for independence and FC Barcelona.

In an article published by the Guardian, on 2 October, 2017, football journalist

and author Sid Lowe wrote:
“At every Camp Nou game for almost six years now, chants for Catalan
independence have gone up when the clock reaches 17 minutes and 14 seconds,
commemorating the year the city fell to Felipe V...” (Lowe, September 2017)

Later that day, Josep Maria Bartomeu, the President of FC Barcelona, released a Page | 2
statement on the club’s website, extracts from which read:

“Always siding with the majority of the Catalan people… At such a transcendental
moment in our history, FC Barcelona reasserts its commitment to freedom and to
the people of Catalonia…” (FC Barcelona, October 2017)

“In our position as a club of such global scope, we shall continue to tell the world
about the reality of what’s happening in ‘our country’ [emphasis mine] and our
commitment to ‘its people and their freedoms’ [emphasis mine], a commitment
to which the club has remained faithful throughout its 118 years of history.”
(Ibid.)

And finally, also on 2 October, FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique (who also
plays for the Spanish national team) was quoted saying:

“I thought they would try to block the vote but they would try to do it in a
peaceful manner. It wasn't like that, but at least the whole world has seen it.”
(BBC, October 2017)

“This decision has made things a lot worse. It is one of the worst decisions… It has
only served to separate Catalonia and Spain more and it will have consequences.”
(Ibid.)

“I am and I feel Catalan, today more than ever. I am proud of the behaviour of the
people of Catalonia. Voting is a right that must be defended.” (Ibid.)

Pique is a Barcelona-born footballer – a Catalan by birth – and a sporting icon for

fans of the club. But the 30-year-old is much more than just a footballer.

Pique is also a fierce advocate of his province’s right to express a democratically-

guaranteed right to invoke debate on the topic of secession.
He is an outlet for millions of Catalans (his Twitter account has over 16 million
followers), and his criticism of the Spanish centre, rival club Real Madrid CF (the
‘profane’ to a Catalan’s ‘sacred’), and its players are closely followed.

Specific to this example, for Catalans - wherever they may be – FC Barcelona, the Page | 3
Nou Camp stadium and (some of) the club’s players are icons and symbols (the
totems) of a country without a land and a national identity with a nation.

In a broader sense, invoking Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined community’ may help

understand how and why FC Barcelona and the Nou Camp stadium operate as
spaces within which Catalans project and see reflections of (meaning the football
club and/or its players actively participate in the exercise) their identities –
because ‘even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members,
meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
communion.’ (Anderson 2006: 22)

So how does football give power to the people?

A game consists of two teams of 18 to 22 players and their respective coaches, a

team of referees, and a stadium full of supporters and fans.

These spaces – both physical (as in stadiums, players and fans) and abstract (as in
choreographed displays by fans with assorted sporting paraphernalia) – offer
communities the opportunity to - a) act and interact with different parts of a
whole that may have been divided by time and distance, b) to act and interact
with communities, or parts of communities, seen as the ‘enemy’, and c) to act,
interact and negotiate with a larger social, cultural, economic and political whole.

For example, one way of expressing the relationship between the city of Madrid
(as a ‘representative’ of the Spanish government) and Catalonia is via political
channels, like referendums and parliamentary discussions; although it is more
often expressed through semi-forced debates in the media. (see Conversi 2000,
María Magone 2009 & Cuadras Morató 2016).

But these ties are also expressed via cultural assertions, and, in this case, sporting
metaphors – i.e., when Real Madrid play Barcelona.
Joan Gaspart, a former president of the club, once said: “Barcelona is the defence
of a country, a language, a culture.” (Lowe 2013: 10).

Football matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid allow Catalans to re-assert
(and defend) their identity as a distinct culture… set apart from that of Spain. Page | 4

“Barça [the club] are a hundred times more famous than Catalonia itself, and are
the main source of Catalan pride. When Franco ruled Spain, they were the only
source. Why, I asked a Catalan woman bored by football, do you care about Barça
beating Real Madrid? She replied: ‘Franco destroyed our autonomy and forbade
our language, and he supported Real Madrid.’” (Kuper 2003: 87)

“With Barcelona and Real Madrid, it is so often about each other; they are
defined by what they are and what they are not. Being a Barcelona fan necessarily
means being an anti-Madridista and vice versa – even if those identities, like any
identity, are built at least partly on myths.” (Lowe 2013: 13)

All of the above is only the tip of the iceberg.

Everything about the game – from the moment the fans enter the stadium to the
time they leave – is of significance to the knowledgeable onlooker. This includes
the stadium and the result, as well as the actions of the players, referees and fans.

More importantly – and to establish the universality of football’s role as an

enabler - this connection between sport and society is a common one.

When ex-Brazil international Pelé travelled to Africa in the 1960s, he was asked to
take part in an exhibition game. At the time Nigeria was in the throes of a civil war
but urban legend says the government and rebels agreed on a 48-hour ceasefire…
to watch Pelé play (Pelé 2008: 166).

Whether or not this story is true, it illustrates the power football wields; as reality
and as myth, football allows individuals and the community to wear their hearts
on their sleeves, and itself to be used as a (potential) conflict resolution stage.
Stories of the remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914 (during World War I) also
illustrate the power of football – not as a sport, but as a social activity – to unite
people divided by war.

“The war in Flanders between German and British soldiers fell silent on Christmas Page | 5
Eve 1914. The soldiers stopped shooting and started singing. On Christmas Day
they came out of their trenches and met in No Man’s Land. Some played
football…” (Thermaenius 2014: 4)

“A British soldier wrote several years after the war that ‘the Germans came out of
their protective holes, fetched a football and invited our boys out for a little
game. Our boys joined them and together they quickly had great fun till they…
had to return to their posts.’” (Thermaenius 2014: 44)

And football’s ability to unite people extends beyond politics and nationalism.

In Germany, for example, St Pauli FC is said to command the loyalty of the

LGBTIQA+ community worldwide, as well as supporting anti-fascist and anti-
discriminatory ideologies. (see Davidson 2014)

In Spain, the story of how residents of a small town in northern Spain saved their
football club – Real Oviedo – has become legend.

“The ‘Real’ in Oviedo's name took on greater significance than ever. Oviedo fans
rebelled, mobilising to save their club, protesting, raising money, forcing the local
government's hand.” (Lowe, December 2012)

In India, the rivalry between FC Mohun Bagan and East Bengal FC is an equally
mesmerising tale… mostly because it finds expression in the prices of seafood.
(see Dimeo and Mills 2001)

In the end, viewed as a sporting activity, football has limited sociological appeal;
students of management might find more elements worthy of study, such as
concepts of teamwork and the soft skills of coaches and managers.

However, viewed as a social activity – one that inspires love and hatred is a rich
vein of subject matter for sociologists.
Football: Us and them (after all, we’re only ordinary men…)

So, football is peace (or can foster peace) and promote (or force) dialogue. But at
the same time, football is also war, and the power of those emotions driving fans
can (and does) spill over into violence and riots. Page | 6

Eric Dunning notes “… sport can be said to be in key respects functionally

homologous both with religion as conceptualised by Durkheim (1915) and with
war”. (Dunning 2010: 188)

Dunning lists three ‘functions’ for sport; the sum of these is sport “acts as a focus
of collective identification… and offers experiences analogous to… tribal religions
and primitive war.” (Ibid.) Moreover, the ‘inherently conflictual and zero-sum
character’ of sport translates to an ‘us v/s them’ reality that gives conflict a
veneer of acceptability.

As a corollary, while team sports are more open to such interpretations than
individual sports (like tennis, for example), the fundamental ‘we-group’/ ‘they-
group’ interpretation can be applied to any sport. (Ibid.)

For further reading, Richard Giulianotti discusses theories of ‘militaristic order on

the terraces [spectator stands in football stadiums]’, as well as ethogenic and
Marxist/subcultural discourses on fan disorder. (see Giulianotti 2005)

It is also important to understand that ‘we-group’/ ‘they-group’ conflicts don’t

always play out between clubs and/or supporters. They also play out as narratives
centred around one club.

Millwall FC – a club based in the southeast of London – has a history of fan

violence, but this narrative is worn as a badge of honour by the supporters.

“… later Millwall came into the picture. In 1920, 1934 and 1950, their ground, The
Den, was closed due to crowd disturbances. Then in the sixties… an upsurge in
pitch invasions, riots and violence… seen in the anarchic spirit of the time as an
attempt to reclaim the game for the working-class.” (Cawthorne 2012: x)
But this image of Millwall fans is contested (see Robson 2000 and Ward 2013 for
more on Millwall FC and fan violence in England in the 1970s and 80s) and in that
contestation lies one kind of the rivalry within (and surrounding) clubs.

In an e-mail interview with this author, Merv Payne, a life-long fan, said: “The Page | 7
tabloid image of Millwall fans may be that of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals that
just want to fight other fans but the truth is 99% have very old-fashioned deep-
seated working class values of integrity… and will always stand together and fight
in times of trouble if they feel the need (not just in the physical sense!).” (Payne,
2016)

Giulianotti traces (some part of) the origin of that narrative to the early post-war
period in England; fans attending midweek football games were seen as
“jeopardising the maximisation of working man-hours and the national rebuilding
programme”. (Giulianotti 2005: 12)

The 1970s were a period when violence amongst football fans started to grab
eyeballs, first across England and then with the English national team in Europe,
and Millwall fans were some of those at the forefront of that narrative, combined
with the growing realisation that right-wing forces had infiltrated the sport.

Nigel Cawthorne writes: “… in October 1977, both media and supporters across
Europe suddenly realised… a new and potentially frightening dimension to the
problem… the hooligans were putting aside their club loyalties to travel with the
national side… with the right-wing already making inroads into the game in
England.” (Cawthorne 2012: 38)

Outside of England, an example from eastern Europe is the ‘story of the collapse
of Yugoslavia, in a frenzy of hatred and war… may also be described as the story
of evolution of violence in Yugoslav sport, especially among football hooligans.’
(Popov and Gojković 2000: 373)

Violence in football is a fascinating topic, covering scores of countries and vast

swathes of time, and social, political and economic conditions; see Frosdick and
Marsh 2013 for a critical sociological, psychological and criminological overview.
That said, violent football fans and hooligans isn’t the focus here… of more
immediate concern is the symbolism linking fans and a war of identities waged
with the ‘enemy’.

And there are various kinds of ‘enemies’ – the ones Millwall fans fight is different Page | 8
from the ones Barcelona fans face, fans of Mohun Bagan in India bring a different
perspective to their rivalry with East Bengal, and fans of St Pauli battle
institutionalised prejudices against sexual minorities in their quest for equality.

The point here is not so much the ‘enemy’ but the shared bond linking groups of
supporters who, in the normal course of life, may not see each other on a daily or
even casual basis… but remain bound together by a common goal or ideology and
find, in football, a space to express themselves.

And it is to this thought that Anderson’s ‘smallest nation will never know most of
their fellow-members’ (Anderson 2006: 22) idea is applied.

“A camaraderie asserts itself among the different groups, a shared sense of

identity. ‘We’ll murder that mob today,’ a voice says. ‘Ah bloody hope so,’ says
another quietly.” (Wilson 2012: 7)

In Scotland, Celtic FC was once one of Europe’s strongest sides; they were the first
British side to win the European Cup (the continent’s most prestigious inter-club
title). And through the gritty and grimy post-war period Celtic gave the city of
Glasgow a strong sense of identity – a way to tell Britain, and the rest of Europe,
that they wouldn’t be forgotten.

The Old Firm derby in Glasgow – featuring Celtic and Rangers FC – is as (in)famous
as the one between Real Madrid and Barcelona. And, like its Spanish counterpart,
this derby is about more than just football.

In this case, it is about religion – about the Catholics and the Protestants. And, as
with other rivalries, there is a strong connection between the fans and the clubs.

“… interaction with the fans is a way of life in Glasgow, because even for those
living in the suburbs, everything gravitates to and revolves around, the city
centre. Players and fans mingle – in bars, restaurants, clubs, even on golf courses
and in high-end shops – while the Scots in the dressing room or the backroom
staff make sure the newcomers, particularly foriegners, know what the supporters
will expect and how they will express their views.” (Wilson 2012: 23)

Supporters of Celtic were ready to go to (and often did) war with Rangers fans… Page | 9
for them it wasn’t just about football (maybe it wasn’t about football at all?). The
heart of the matter was religious and political.

But, of course, football isn’t actually war; whatever Pontus Jansson may say, and
whatever combative/patriotic streak England footballers are urged to display
during the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia (see Bernstein 2017), football is at best
a proxy for the kind of organised and ritualised military display we call war.

However, those displays are not new developments. More importantly, those
displays are a big reason why rivalries between football clubs exist beyond the
lifetime of one generation of fans – the rivalry is institutionalised and becomes
part of the individual fan’s worldview, passing down from parent to child.

Carles Rexach, a former Barcelona player who spent nearly two decades with the
club, said: “Barca was his [his father, who played for the club and also fought in
the Civil War]. My support for Barca comes from my father, who instilled in me
what it meant to be from Barcelona.” (Fitzpatrick 2012: 104)

“From a very young age I felt that my dad struggled in his relationship with me, it
wasn't as natural as a mother's bond, for obvious reasons! So when he took me to
Millwall (something always considered in my house as 'a dad thing' like going to
the pub). I felt he was sharing a family secret with me in many ways.” (Payne,
2016)

Supporting Barcelona or Millwall or Real Madrid or Manchester United isn’t

usually a decision that is open for discussion in some families.

“… games were expressions of local rivalries that involved hundreds of people.

This was the case in the rivalry between Saint Peter’s and All Saints’ parishes in
Derby that drew hundreds of players and a large regional audience.” (Ruff 2001:
169)
In 1993, Manchester United FC travelled to Turkey to play Galatasaray SK in
Istanbul’s Ali Sami Yen stadium. In a retrospective article, published by the
Independent in November 2012, journalist Tim Rich wrote:

“There were many banners greeting Manchester United as they arrived in Page | 10
Istanbul. Some said it would be their last 48 hours alive. Others said: ‘RIP
Manchester’. The most famous proclaimed: ‘Welcome to hell’”. (Independent,
November 2012)

Retired English footballer Gary Pallister played in that game and told Rich: “They
let the supporters in at the airport with all the 'Welcome to Hell' banners. They
could only have come in with the police's say-so.” (Ibid.)

Choreographed displays of support by fans – with banners, body paint, streamers,

musical chants and even fireworks – are a huge part of their matchday ritual. Like
Pallister said it is about telling the visiting team (and their fans), ‘you are in our
territory, and you will suffer’.

In African football it is not unusual for witchdoctors to practice their juju (in
witchcraft, and specifically West African cultures, juju refers to magical objects/
powers/resources - a ‘sacred’ construct) before football games.

“One of the most notorious facets of African football is the use of juju or black
magic employed before and during football matches… This innate belief
necessitates each team to employ a manager of juju rituals to confound and
enfeeble opponents… While the witch doctor only guides players and coaches on
what talismans, rituals and mediums to utilise before a game, fans of teams try to
mimic their football idols and adopt the same juju exercises.” (Onwumechili &
Akindes 2014: 230)

As bizarre as it may seem, the witch doctor makes an appearance in international

football too; the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is an example.

On 23 June, 2014, sports journalist Jeré Longman wrote in The New York Times:
“This particular witch doctor put a curse on the knees of Cristiano Ronaldo in
February…” (Longman, 2014)
Football fans and supporters’ groups express identities in many different ways -
from the ‘normal’ practice of waving banners to engaging in fisticuffs with rival
supporters.

Summing up, violence in football should not (and for the most part isn’t) be Page | 11
dismissed as ‘mere’ hooliganism; violence in sport (in team games particularly) is a
periodic ritual that reaffirms participants’ sense of belonging. (Turner 1974)

And that sense of belonging extends (quite naturally) to defending ‘your’

community. To return to Jansson’s comment, it extends to include ‘going to war’
to fight for the honour and glory of ‘my’ club and ‘my’ identity.

Football stadiums, co-opted by fans driven by political, social and/or cultural

beliefs and ideologies, are intimidating places to visit… particularly when the
visiting team is the ‘enemy’.

Against the backdrop of the September 2017 referendum, for example, when Real
Madrid came to the Estadio Montilivi to play Sporting Girona – a Catalan club.
And when Real Madrid were beaten – by a side inferior in wealth, prestige and
talent – all hell broke loose.

An article written by Sid Lowe in the aftermath of that historic win provides some
context. Lowe writes:

“Just before 3.45pm on Friday, with the political situation seemingly changing
constantly, Puigdemont declared Catalan independence… (Girona) supporters
flooded into the streets singing the Catalan anthem… That afternoon, the Spain
flag was taken down from Girona’s town hall. And the following night, Madrid
arrived by train. The next day, at the same time as mass demonstrations were
held by Spanish unionists and attended by the president of the league Javier
Tebas, they were due to play the first match since the declaration of
independence…” (Lowe, October 2017)

Suddenly it was Girona and not Barcelona that was the centre of Catalonia’s fight
for independence; the connection between the two clubs and the region were
strong to begin with and that win has made it stronger still, for it will go down as
one of the most legendary moments in that small club’s history and one of the
most memorable moments in the ongoing Catalan struggle.

More importantly, it reiterates the dynamic link between football clubs and the
(in this case) political identities of their region. Page | 12

When Dunning says sport ‘acts as a focus of collective identification’ he meant, I

think to say that events and processes – social, political, economic, etc. – were
attracted to football because of the sport’s popularity.

But, for me, even as a sport football is a more active player in all of this – the way
the contemporary game has evolved and the depth of emotions that are
generated

“‘While playing for Celtic in 1998, the Danish defender Marc Rieper travelled to
Buncrana, a small town in Donegal, to help carry the coffin of Oran Doherty. The
eight-year-old boy was… a Celtic supporter, even being buried in the team’s strip.
‘That was the saddest day of my life,’ Rieper said soon after returning to Glasgow.
‘I was asked by the family to attend Oran’s funeral… There were 10,000 people
there, including all the politicians. All for a wee boy who was buried in his Celtic
strip. A Celtic flag was on his coffin. That was how much the club meant to the
boy. Some things go beyond football.’” (Wilson 2012: 47)

A football match - from the moment fans [worshippers] enter the stadium
[temple] to the litany of pre-match rituals, such as players warming up, being
introduced, lining up for pre-match photographs, etc., and so on, until the
completion of the game and the stadium empties, is a series of ‘sacred’ and
‘profane’ acts, tying the identity of the club to that of the invested culture.

“The collective awe and reverence that collectives (fans, local communities,
nations) have toward particular sports teams, the sacred space in which the
teams play and fans congregate (worship), and the various sacred symbols (logos,
clothing), icons (star, heroes), hymns (e.g., songs such as Liverpool FC’s ‘You’ll
never walk alone’), and rituals that they have, mean – following Durkheim – that
sport functions as the equivalent of (church) religion.” (Dillon 2013: )”i
Football: Where did you come from, where did you go?

There is no one history of football… the world’s most popular game,

Page | 13
appropriately, belongs to a multitude of civilisations and cultures.

One of the earliest examples of organised ball games is from China; records from
the Han dynasty mention a game called ‘cuju’ (‘kick the ball with foot’).

The Chinese were less concerned with playing ‘cuju’ as a sport and more
interested in its military applications. Historians believe it was more commonly
used by generals and army leaders looking to keep their soldiers ‘fighting’ fit.

However, over time it began to be played by civilians as well… and ‘evolved into a
game of relaxation, an entertainment, and a competitive sport with rules,
captains and referees’. (Crowther 2007: 4)

But China doesn’t have a monopoly on organised ball games that predate the
contemporary form of football.

Sometime around 770 BC the Greeks played ‘episkyros’ and later the Romans
played ‘harpastum’. Central and South American civilizations played variations
called ‘pilimatun’, ‘tchoekah’, ‘tlatchtli’, ‘ullamaliztli’, and ‘pasuckquakkohowog’.
(see Foulds and Harris 1979, and Oliver 1992)

In each case, like the Chinese with ‘cuju’, each civilization began to see games in a
different light; “… ball games were played to encourage coordination, cooperation
and a measure of fitness. High-quality players were determined by their skill and
grace.” (Craig 2002: 103)

And slowly the games began to be better organised… teams were better coached,
commercial elements crept in (it isn’t too hard to imagine a betting industry
sprang up around ‘episkyros’ games in ancient Greece), and the sport was
exported to conquered countries and peoples.
The spread of football (the contemporary version – believed to have originated in
England in the 17th and 18th centuries) or the ‘diffusion’ of football is tied to the
spread of colonialism (an unsurprising development, really).

“…diffusion of the soccer form of football started in Great Britain and Ireland. It Page | 14
was from the outset a process which involved a geographical spread as well as
diffusion down the social scale… the ‘informal British Empire’… involved British
soldiers, sailors, tradespeople, engineers and other professionals forming clubs
while stationed or working abroad in non-colonised settings where natives copied
the sports.” (Dunning 2010: 190)

This diffusion led to the formation of clubs like Spain’s Athletic Bilbao (founded by
British steel workers), Italian club AC Milan (founded by English businessmen like
Alfred Edwards) and FC Sao Paulo in Brazil (founded by Charles Miller, the son of
an expatriate railway construction engineer); in Asia, India’s Durand Cup was
founded in 1888 by Sir Mortimer Durand.

From a political perspective, the 19th and 20th centuries were particularly
important in Europe. The Napoleonic Wars concluded in the early part of the 19th
century, leaving the British and Russians as the most powerful in Europe.

The Germans were around as well but boosted by rapid colonial growth overseas
and the Industrial Revolution, the British staked claim to being a world power,
with vast overseas colonies pouring their riches into London.

And to govern those colonies, the British created a whole new class of people
(both at home and in their colonies) – the overseas civil servant, who was trained
in public schools across the country.

These schools played their part in furthering and consolidating the British Empire,
by providing a stream of physically and mentally conditioned Englishmen to
define and defend colonial interests overseas.

Robert Heussler, investigating the history of the British Colonial Service partly
from the papers and documents of Sir Ralph Dolignon Furse [who joined the
Colonial Office in 1910 and served as consultant to the Secretary of State for the
Colonies in the matter of training young men for the Colonial Service], wrote:

“‘As to the public schools,’ writes Furse, ‘they are vital… In England universities
train the mind; the Public Schools train character and teach leadership.’… the Page | 15
importance of Public Schools as sources of recruitment was primary. Colonial
officers were not just civil servants… They were the bearers of civilisation, the
custodians of a sacred trust.” (Heussler 1963: 83)

The idea of ‘custodians of a sacred trust’ is reinforced in Rudyard Kipling’s novels,

which feature sections where protagonists are told of the ‘duty of the
Englishman’. In Kim, for example, when the title character is introduced to Father
Victor and Reverend Arthur Bennett, both consciously position the idea of a ‘half-
literate’, ‘half-naked’ savage in opposition to a ‘gentleman of the British empire’.

Within Europe the spread of football was more prosaic - the Industrial Revolution
drove blue-collar workers [tradesmen, factory workers, miners, doctors, etc.] to
the continent.

Spain was a popular destination - the oldest professional club there is Recreativo
de Huelva, which was formed in 1889 by Dr William Alexander Mackay and
workers from the Rio Tinto mining company.

Early football games were disorganised and amateurish affairs, but as the sport’s
popularity grew, events and competitions were held and slowly what was perhaps
a weekend leisure activity between neighbouring clubs

For those more familiar with cricket then football, an excellent analogy is the
2001 Hindi film Lagaan – a colonised people, to whom an alien sport/social
activity is introduced (condescendingly), rally behind that sport, using it to

as a As more numbers of countries began playing football, there grew a need to

create a standard structure, a format complete with rules, regulations and a
governing body; the latter particularly so because of the growing number of
international fixtures. It initially fell to England to move on this agenda, given the
role they played in spreading the game. Eventually though, eight European
countries – Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden
and Switzerland - came together to found FIFA.

The progression of football into its contemporary version is a significant

because it indicates an origin period of disorganised/unstructured/non-codified Page | 16
but nevertheless organised sporting activity; i.e., organisation at local levels as
opposed to national or global. The fragmentary nature of football’s many ancient
forerunners – whether Chinese or Aztec – or, since this text focuses on Europe,
whether caid [form of Gaelic football] and La Soule [folk football in France],
travels a ‘civilising’ process, so to speak, to form the sport of football [or rugby]
played today.

Performing identity through football extends almost imperceptibly into the act of
nation building. The football stadium has a particular role to play in this context
and this will be discussed shortly but it is important to realise the whole of this
space – football and performance – is created by ‘lived experiences’. And by this is
meant the creation of memories and experiences, handed down through
generations as a sort of holy/spiritual body of knowledge that defines the football
club, the stadium, the players and the fans as something sacred… something set
apart from the humdrum of normal life.

Dunning advises approaching “… the complex or configuration of issues associated

with globalisation and the globalisation of sport from a figurational or process-
sociological standpoint…” (Dunning 2010: 183)

This approach hinges on five points, two of which are:

1. “Sport and its social contexts have to be viewed as processes rather than as
steady-states. That is, care has to be taken to avoid the fallacy of… reducing
processes to states…” (Ibid., 184)

2. “… one has to be sensitive to the ways in which emergent global integration

and institutions affect the relative power-chances and life-chances of
sports-related groups…” (Ibid., 184)
The first confirms what is obvious – the study of football and football clubs cannot
happen in isolation.

And following on from the first, the second brings the approach into the
contemporary world. So, the political act of Catalonia declaring independence Page | 17
from Spain may have ramifications for Barcelona FC, and the United Kingdom’s
decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) could affect English football.

The advantage of looking at how football acts as a mirror / enabler for social
groups and their identities from a process-based standpoint is this – that it allows
the observer to understand how the relationship between the two was identified
and how it evolved.

The idea of performance in football becomes an exercise in the creation of a

particular space. The rivalry that channels performances and identity conflicts
needs a physical space to play itself out and that space is the stadium. And where
there is physical space and identity conflict, the strains of nationalism/nation-
building and the work of Benedict Anderson aren’t far behind.

The underlying connection between all of these different perspectives is that of

identity. More specifically, the connection is differentiation in identities. Football,
at its most basic level, is competition. It is driven by pitting one team against the
other; the combative nature of any team sport elicits an ‘us v/s them’ mentality.
The football club becomes, to borrow Barcelona’s motto, ‘More than a club’. It
becomes the centre of a people, a rallying point for a social cause, the fulcrum of
an economic movement or, quite simply, the very core of who a group of people
are, in all aspects of life, and against all Others.

Football: Extra, Extra! Read all about it in the papers

Media coverage of football in Europe is serious business. A wide array of

newspapers, websites and blogs cover everything from breaking news and live
coverage of hundreds of games every week, to transfer rumours and fluff pieces
about footballers’ lifestyles and personal lives.

And within those tens of thousands of words and hours of video footage written
and recorded every week are clues to how each country, community and society Page | 18
sees footballers and football, in their own countries and abroad.

David Hand and Liz Crolley show that media coverage often focuses on action-
images - these dramatise and make larger than life sporting movement and
performances, creating [identity] bridges between the individual and the club.

Media reports in Spain, for example, are often inspired by bullfighting – a key
cultural metaphor for Spanish society. It isn’t uncommon to see a player who
guides the ball past a huddle of opposing defenders to be called torero or
bullfighter.

The player who scores a winning goal is el matador or the one who kills the bull.
And the player who set up the goal is el picador or the one who weakens the
animal before the killing blow. (Hand and Crolley 2005: 300)

In a related study, Crolley and Hand analyse football in terms of media-used

cultural metaphors. And we’re treated to an array of such, from ‘British tenacity’
(Crolley and Hand 2013: 146), ‘French champagne football’ (Ibid., 148), and the
notion that Germans are ‘disciplined’, ‘ordered’, and ‘machine-like’ (Ibid., 151).

Crolley and Hand also refer to the Spanish media’s use of the word ‘furia’ (Crolley
and Hand 2006: 38), which approximates to a cocktail of passion, courage,
determination and the national team’s never-say-die attitude.

In the spaces where football journalism meets culture studies, the work of leading
journalists makes for interesting reading.

English journalist Sid Lowe wrote:

“The symbolism was intense, as it always is at San Mamés. From the approach to
the ground along Calle Pozas, narrow and straight… red and white flags… -- a
tunnel toward the ground with Athletic's badge painted big and bold…
“They call San Mamés 'The Cathedral'…

“The liturgy of San Mamés is unmatched by any arena in the world. This is a
community of the faithful, and the communion between players and fans is
palpable.” (Lowe, February 2012) Page | 19

Football is inescapably political… something that is hard for non-enthusiasts to

understand. What appears to be merely a physical activity – the kicking of a
leather ball this way and that – is loaded with significance at every turn.

Staying in Spain, an excellent example is the recent referendum. The Catalonian

President’s deputy, Oriol Junqueras, was quoted in the United Kingdom’s Daily
Express as saying:

“We think it is opportune to provide context for the moment we find ourselves in,
facing a State which has denied the citizens of Catalonia [the right to] vote. A
Spanish government that assaults fundamental democratic rights, and has
ministers who conspire against the Catalan health system.” (Daily Express, June
2017)

An overtly political matter… but one that FC Barcelona was forced to address on
its website, although in a carefully worded statement so as to not run afoul of the
government in Madrid. The final section of the statement (the interesting bit)
read:

“FC Barcelona… will continue to support the will of the majority of Catalan
people, and will do so in a civil, peaceful, and exemplary way.” (FC Barcelona,
September 2017)

Clubs like Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao always formally deny political affiliations
(Duke and Crolley 2014: 44) but the ghost of regional politics past is never far.
And it often finds expression in the players, who, by voicing individual political
concerns, offer the community a platform to voice their political identity, and
identify with that club.
Oleguer Presas is a retired Spanish footballer who played for FC Barcelona
between 2001 and 2008. A defender by trade, Presas was also active politically
and in 2007 he wrote an article for a Basque newspaper called Berria.

In it, Presas attacked the Spanish judicial system and highlighted a case involving a Page | 20
Basque - Iñaki de Juana Chaos – who was convicted on terrorism charges and
sentenced to 3,000 years in prison. (El Mundo, February 2007)

Politics also finds expression in English football.

In the aftermath of Brexit, the government of the United Kingdom and the
Premier League are likely to face-off over immigration rules; players from
European Union (EU) countries, who were formerly exempt from requiring visas
to work in the UK, will now compete with non-EU players for immigration
clearance.

The Independent, in the first of a series of articles addressing this issue, wrote:
“English clubs are already extremely unlikely to retain the ability to sign sixteen
and seventeen-year-old footballers from the EU/EEA… Losing this exception… will
give European clubs… an additional two-year window… to sign the best young
players.” (The Independent, April 2017)

And considering the going transfer fee for talented young footballers is upwards
of £50m per player, even mid-level English clubs stand to lose an additional £100 -
£150m per year in transfer fees alone; and several times that amount when
including player salaries and agent fees.

The notion of performing identities through football being a religious experience

is also something to consider. Newspapers in Spain constantly use references to
classic Spanish personality traits and features of Spanish society such as the siesta
or mid-afternoon nap, the strong Catholic influence, references to the Spanish
armada and the notion of militaristic 'battles' being fought on a football pitch
(Hand, Crolley and Jeutter 2000ii, Hand and Crolley 2005).

Performance will also be of concern when studying the individual actor

[fan/footballer]. In some cases, some players acquire legendary statuses at clubs
or countries and such statuses mean inclusion into the club/country’s history; the
player becomes more than the sum of his achievements on field… he becomes
part of the culture and philosophy at the core of the club’s identity.

A footballer of the standing of Raul Gonzalez [ex-Real Madrid] is an expression of Page | 21

his club’s cultural and philosophical capital. And unlike static projections like
insignias, anthems, chants and stadiums, he is active… creating, defending and
spreading the status of the club and its identity.

Raul left Real Madrid in 2010, after spending nearly two decades at the Santiago
Bernabéu. The Spaniard made nearly 800 appearances in all competitions, is the
leading goal scorer [323 goals] and owns almost every record available. In his time
at the Bernabéu, Raul led Madrid to six league championships and three
European championships, leaving the club the darling of its fans and with status
nearly as legendary as that of the late Alfredo Di Stefano.

More importantly, Raul came to represent a certain philosophy… of both

football and life. The fact he was sometimes called the ‘footballing king’ of Spain
is alludes to the royalist history of the club; the club’s prefix ‘Real’ translates from
Spanish as ‘Royal’ and was a title granted by King Alonso XII in 1920 iii.

Raul’s trademark goal celebration has always been to kiss his wedding ring, to
honour his wife and children. The subtext of the action emphasises traditional
social structures like the family and marriage. His joy at winning the 2000 UEFA
Champions League title was emphasised with a matador-like swirl of a cape [the
Spanish flagiv]; the bullfight and the bullfighter are key action-images of the
Spanish identity.

Raul is just one example. Ryan Giggs [ex-Manchester United], Steven Gerrard
[Liverpool], Carlos Puyol [ex-Barcelona], Iker Casillas [Real Madrid], Paolo Maldini
[ex-AC Milan] and Francesco Totti [AS Roma] are a few other examples… and
many more exist.

The term ‘performance’, therefore, is used with specific cause throughout this
text – to emphasise football’s theatrical qualities. It helps also that the notion of
theatre and performance plays well with the expression of an identity. And, apart
from providing insight into how identity is crafted onto football [‘performed’],
note how any description of a footballer or a football match is always set up to go
beyond the sporting act. It is never as simple as “Andres Iniesta passed the ball to
Xavi Hernandez, who then passed it to Lionel Messi who then hit the ball past Joe
Page | 22
Hart to score a goal”.

In the final analysis, the media’s position as gatekeepers and disseminators of

information (even in today’s digital age where access to information is far from a
difficult task) allows newspapers and journalists to influence people.

Bourdieu suggested reporting “always implies a social construction of reality that

can mobilise (or demobilise) individuals or group”. (Bourdieu 1998: 21)

Journalists create news by reporting on events, individuals or groups. The news

reports they write and the videos they create are regarded in a certain light -
journalists are relied on to provide accurate and fair information on current affairs
and world events.

But understanding what is and what is not news is complicated by the position
journalism holds in society. In most cases,

“Journalism is not produced within a vacuum. Journalists work within a range of

constraints and influences; structural factors that affect their output.“ (McQuail
2000, p.244)

“But news is not out there, journalists do not report news, they produce news.
They construct it, they construct facts, they construct statements and they
construct a context in which these facts make sense. They reconstruct ‘a’ reality.”
(Vasterman 1995).

One way of understanding how those perceptions (journalists and readers’) are
coloured is by using frames.

Schudson explains the concept of frames in the media as ‘principles of selection,

emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists,
what happens, and what matters.’ (Schudson 2011, p.28)
He says framing is a concept that ‘moves the analysis of news away from the idea
of intentional bias’ and says ‘…to acknowledge that news stories frame reality is
also to acknowledge that it would be humanly impossible to avoid framing.’
(Schudson 2011, p.29)
Page | 23

The idea was first introduced by sociologist Erving Goffman, who wrote:

“Social frameworks… provide background understanding for events that

incorporate the will, aim and controlling effect of an intelligence, a live agency,
the chief one being the human being. Such an agency is anything but implacable;
it can be coaxed, flattered, affronted, and threatened. What it does can be
described as “guided doings”. These doings subject the doer to “standards” to
social appraisal of his action based on its honesty, efficacy, economy, safety,
elegance, tactfulness, good taste, and so forth.” (Goffman 1986, p.22)

Football: The emergence of game-patterns

Within the context of this paper, Dunning and Elias’ ‘game-pattern’ can be defined
as the “continuous movement of the configuration of players” in a football game
(Elias and Dunning 1966: 389).

The concept describes an active social space in which the actor constructs realities
from both interpretations of spaces lived in and through perspectives of and
negotiations with other individuals/collectives in both immediate and surrounding
spaces.
For a slightly more elaborate explanation of ‘game-pattern’, Elias and Dunning
write:

“… similar to the ways in which groups of dancers regroup themselves in the

course of a dance. The initial configuration from which the [football] players start Page | 24
changes into other configurations of players in a continuous movement. It is to
this continuous movement of the configuration of players to which we refer when
we use the term ‘game-pattern’”. (Ibid.., p. 389)

So why is a ‘game-pattern’ important?

Because

It is important to note that these multi-point interactions are also multi-

space interactions. A football match is between two teams of 11 players each.
Within the space of a football match analogy, game-patterns are evolving
combinations of players and player movements executed by Team A and
influenced by Team B and vice versa.

This differentiation is particularly important, for it illustrates the

complexities of an evolving network; the true dynamism of a game-pattern is in
being able to visualise a social space by simultaneously monitoring every one of a
multiplicity of positions and social relationships. Viewed from the context of a
football match, game-patterns attempt to visualise the movement of one player
not only as individual coordinating with other individuals [on the same team] but
also with opposing team members and then again as a member of one team
against the other.

On the pitch, the football player’s movement depends on the initial

position, individual role and capabilities and team tactics at the start, among
other details. As the game grows, the teams fence with each other, looking
[negotiating] for empty space to make runs into, receive the ball and score goals.
Each player’s movement, therefore, becomes contingent on the other team, as
well as, for example, weather and results of matches played elsewhere.
Dunning and Elias explain:

“…by using the term ‘group dynamics’ in this context, we do not refer to the
changing configurations of each of the two groups of players as if they could be
considered in separation, as if each had dynamics of its own. That is not the case. Page | 25
In a game of football, the configuration of players on the one side and that of the
players on the other side are interdependent and inseparable. They form in fact
one single configuration.” (Ibid.., p. 390)

Game-patterns are visualised as push-pull spaces; movement in one

direction or a given act of position-taking must be met/offset by movement in
another direction or the surrender of a given position. A push-pull model in this
context includes more than one type of behavioural model; it must include
agreement as well as disagreement, collaboration as well as competition, and
teamwork as well as individualism.

Push-pull models/game-patterns are characterised by two more elements –

negotiation and hierarchy. These will be recast once Pierre Bourdieu’s work is
introduced but, for now, game-patterns cannot evolve and, by extension, social
structures cannot be formed without both these elements.

Negotiation is simply the social relationship in action; it is the play of stores

of power/capital [actionable properties that help its bearer exert control over
competitors for social resources or spaces] against each other in the battle to
claim ownership of spaces or positions. Real Madrid discussing the transfer of a
player from another club is ‘negotiation’ – it involves playing stores of
economic/social/sporting power of one club against the other, with the club that
wins the negotiation signing/keeping the player.

The process of negotiation, in turn, has a few pre-requisites – Reward and

an Opponent. The process also requires a space structured, to some degree, by
rules and regulations. And finally, it also means traditional analytical perspectives
like functionalism and conflict theory are still alive.
 And now, consider this note by Elias and Dunning:

“…sociological thinking…revolves around two alternatives: problems of group

tension stand to one side, problems of group co-operation and harmony on the
other. Group tensions appear to be one phenomenon; group co-operation and Page | 26
harmony another. Because one has different words, it appears almost as if the
phenomena themselves were different and independent of each other.” (Elias
and Dunning 1966: 391)

Football: Building the space

In 1985 Pierre Bourdieu published an articlev on the theory of social spaces and
the genesis of groups, in which he presents sociology as a form of ‘social
topology’.

This is what he had to say:

“…the social world can be represented as a space (with several dimensions)

constructed on the basis of principles of differentiation or distribution constituted
by the set of properties active within the social universe in question, i.e., capable
of conferring strength, power within that universe, on their holder.

Agents and groups of agents are thus defined by their relative positions within
that space. Each of them is assigned to a position or a precise class of
neighbouring positions (i.e., a particular region in this space) and one cannot
really - even if one can in thought - occupy two opposite regions of the space.
Inasmuch as the properties selected to construct this space are active properties,
one can also describe it as a field of forces, i.e., as a set of objective power
relations that impose themselves on all who enter the field and that are
irreducible to the intentions of the individual agents or even to the direct
interactions among the agents.”
 In both this 1985 text and another he published in 1989 vi, Bourdieu’s
discussion on space centres on notions of power and space. Stripped to its bones,
Bourdieu’s fields of power are adjacent/inter-dependent/inter-related social
spaces within which individuals occupy different spaces. The choice of space
Page | 27
occupied is governed by the amount of power/capital available and the ‘chance of
profits’ it translates into. Bourdieu writes:

“The active properties that are selected as principles of construction of the social
space are the different kinds of power or capital that are current in the different
fields. Capital, which may exist in objectified form – in the form of material
properties – or, in the case of cultural capital, in the embodied state, and which
may be legally guaranteed, represents a power over the field (at a given moment)
and, more precisely, over the accumulated product of past labour.” (Bourdieu
1985:724)

Occupation of spaces translates into ‘profit’ or power/capital/reward,

distributed as economic, social or cultural/symbolic. However, this is a relatively
linear equation and while it is simple to understand, there is more to decipher –
and that starts with aggregation. And with aggregation also comes hierarchy,
again.

Football clubs are products of aggregation. They are structures created at

higher levels of networking individuals, who have already a) a store of
capital/power, and b) been assigned to a ‘position or a precise class of
neighbouring positions’.

Again, stripped to its bones, individuals act and interact with other
individuals in space A; these negotiations involve different forms of capital and a
simple profit-loss model and some individuals win and some lose. Those who win
double up and hold greater numbers of positions or more important positions.
They generate greater/bigger rewards and have more say in dictating the form
and evolution of the space. As the space evolves, aggregates of individuals with
similar positions/stores of capital cluster and create a ‘class on paper’ [what
Bourdieu calls ‘space of relationships’]. These clusters exhibit shared power
structures/displays and eventually form structures guarding consolidated
power/capital stores.

Here, the football club is the shell, the structure ‘guarding consolidated
power/capital stores’, which are nothing but the collected Page | 28
economic/social/cultural capital of all of the club’s fans.

Another way of looking at this would be to see clubs as the products of

sustained interaction between individuals and their traditions. Athletic Bilbao was
formed by English expatriates so they may have some leisure activity; hence their
club colours, red and white, which are found on the English flag. Barcelona came
to re-affirm the Catalan identity and hence their motto ‘Més que un club’, which
translated means ‘More than a club.’ Other clubs may have begun as community
enterprises, as labour unions’ leisure outlets, in direct opposition to a rival
community’s club or, in some cases, as means of discouraging crime and violent
activity amongst the youth.

French football, for example, benefits greatly from access to North, West and
Equatorial Africa. And it began, as Paul Darby notes, through “diffusion of football
to Africa because… the game was viewed by educators and churchmen as
possessing a civilising and educative function”.vii Darby also adds:

“African sportsmen were actively encouraged to compete for the motherland and
win for France the sort of prestige and symbolic capital that success in
international sport often conferred on a nation… it was clearly in the interests of
the French to support the development of football in this region.” (Ibid.., p. 14)

An example of how France’s hold over African countries operates as resources in

building football and football clubs back home [not only in terms of finding
players to play at French clubs but also in terms of developing and training these
youngsters before selling them to bigger clubs for profits – an indirect way of
financing the selling club’s operations and existence] is to consider a country like
Algeria.

Three famous contemporary examples of French-Algerian footballers are Samir

Nasri, Karim Benzema and Zinedine Zidane. The former plays for Manchester City
and Benzema for Real Madrid. Zidane represented the Spanish club as well, from
2001 to 2006, when he retired. The strong imperialist flavour of the French
exploitation of African football resources aside, the fact is it does constitute an
economic/sporting resource for the French national team and leagues.
Page | 29
The history and the proximity of ports like Marseilles to North Africa, means
French society has long been host to young Africans. Leading French clubs like
Olympique Lyonnais and Olympique de Marseille all maintain tabs on former
colonies and organise regular scouting trips.

Football, for selected African youngsters (who sign professional pre-contractual

agreements when as young as fifteen or sixteen) constitutes a space which allows
them upward social and economic mobility. For the clubs, links to African
societies allow them both a steady supply of talent and also of fans.

The long list of players either born in Africa or of African descent [beginning with
Raoul Diagne (French Guiana/Senegal) in 1931 and including such legendary
names as Just Fontaine (Morocco) and Abdelkader Ben Bouali (Algeria)] migrating
to the French league only piqued interest in football abroad, with the result
French clubs can count on large numbers of fans [social/cultural/symbolic
resources] from their former colonies.

The link between African countries and French football holds good even today, as
Akindes explains:

“… many African fans were drawn to fanship… connected with European football
clubs and players. For example, a child growing up in francophone Africa could
read the football newspapers Onze and Miroir du Football (and later on, L'Equipe).
In this way, a fan could learn about French football and the most successful
teams.” (Onwumechili and Akindes 2014)

African football and French/European connections illustrate evolving

contemporary relationships within a multi-space context. Beginning from the
colonial/missionary drive that brought football to the continent, coupled with the
expected insider/outsider dynamic, events allowed for the growth of the game
[culminating in football acting as an expression of African nationalism (see Darby
2013)] and resulting in the ways football and Africa interact today [although there
remains a strong sense of imperialist control over football in Africa, the rising
number of star players in top European clubs, commanding some of the biggest
salaries and, importantly, marketing/advertising/PR endorsements, in the game,
Page | 30
seems to indicate another shift in power/positions].

It is interesting to note English clubs have more fans in Asian, and

particularly South-East Asian, countries than anywhere in Africa [with the possible
exception of South Africa]. Conversely, French football clubs do not generate any
particular cultural capital outside Europe and Africa. What was possibly an
extension of the colonial division of the Orient and Africa [the British Empire had
greater sway in Asia and the French, the Belgians and perhaps the Dutch in
Africa], has translated into the formerly colonised identifying with clubs from
their erstwhile masters… perhaps as sort of a surrogate colonialism.

Today, however, the appeal of English club football [and to a marginally

lesser extent club football from Spain] has grown exponentially across the world,
leading to large sections of fans in Africa as well as Asia. Television, the internet
and increased media coverage has seen elite clubs like Manchester United,
Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal, as well as players like Wayne
Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Robin Van Persie become household
names in, say, Kenya, and opening up lucrative economic resources for these
clubs, in terms of off-season friendlies and merchandise sales.

Of course, it helps that there is now a large number of African players at

the elite level of European club football, and particularly in England. Iconic players
like Didier Drogba [Ivory Coast and Chelsea], Yaya Toure [Ivory Coast and
Manchester City] and Samuel Eto’o [Cameroon and recently of Chelsea] have
helped raise the profile of English football in Africa.

Elite players like Drogba, Toure and Eto’o become valuable commodities in their
home countries. They serve as icons, beacons of inspiration and hope and also
rallying points to express national pride, particularly for countries that may not,
otherwise have a very significant presence on the global stage.
Football clubs: Transfers and making money

Club football has a distinct hierarchy. Clubs from ‘elite’ nations like Spain,
Italy, France, England, Germany and the Netherlands are generally in the top
bracket of European club football. These clubs usually attract significant Page | 31
advertising/marketing endorsements, more lucrative merchandise and television
rights deals and are usually the preferred destination for talented players. Within
this division, contingent on external factors like form, finances and cultural capital
of the city in question, there are subdivisions.

For example, Real Madrid have power reserves of both prestige and
finance, as one of the most decorated, successful and powerful sport franchises in
the world. Dutch club Ajax have a pedigree that is almost as good but cannot
possibly afford to engage the Spanish club in a bidding war for player transfers.
Within the Dutch football league, however, Ajax are in a considerably stronger
position than, say, Roda JC or Go Ahead Eagles.

Similarly, Portuguese club FC Porto are at the pinnacle of the competitive

scene in their homeland but would probably only reflect as a second-tier team on
the continent, despite winning the Champions League [the continent’s most
prestigious tournament] twice.

The point is that each club operates within [and is also influenced by] a
number of concurrent spaces. Agreements over the sharing of revenue from
television coverage, for example constitutes a significant portions of the revenues
of most clubs. The shares, however, vary from country to country and league to
league – Portuguese clubs receive far less than English clubs because television
coverage of their league games may be restricted to only national networks,
whereas English league games are broadcast across the world, significantly
improving the financial take-home.

Essentially, over time what develops, and what has developed not only with
France and its former colonies in Africa but also with England and other smaller
members of the United Kingdom, and with Spain and its former colonies in South
America, is a hierarchically ordered relationship that seeks to negotiate the
transfer of resources, while ensuring maximum possible gain off each transaction.
(See McGovern 2000viii for details of the relationship between Ireland, Scotland
and England)

All consideration of Elias and Dunning’s evolving networks, Bourdieu’s Page | 32

position-taking based off reserves of social, cultural or economic capital and
Durkheim’s building of a sympathetic structure of ‘sacred’ items linking an
identity or a cause with the football club adds to this point – the idea that within
multiple, concurrent and competing spaces of European club football, African club
football, Asian club football, football within different countries and football at
international levels, as well as the social, cultural, religious, economic and political
history of the regions/nations involved, there is a constant stream of negotiation
between the various actors [individual/collective], with each transaction resulting
in a profit for one side and a loss for the other.

Rivalries and hierarchies

Rivalries between football clubs, whether Celtic and Rangers, Real Madrid
and Barcelona or, a less global enmity between Newcastle United and
Sunderland, provide clubs with strong enough capital/resources to negotiate
lucrative television deals and make more money and, in so doing, attempt to win
more championships. There is negotiation here as well. It is not coincidental that
the biggest and most successful football clubs in the world all have long-standing
rivalries. And there is a nexus that forms between a club and an associated
identity.

In the case of French football clubs, for example, African clubs that agree to
become feeder clubs to Ligue 1 sides benefit via improved training facilities,
funds, and a higher profile in world football. In return, the French clubs will
receive first refusal on the most talented African youngsters. Relationships like
this, which occur across the world, display distinct hierarchy in world club
football.

The hierarchy presents itself as a neo-colonialist football space, which,

unlike the more traditional coloniser-colonised relationship, can change. Clubs do
improve their status, either by winning championships [like Atlético Madrid or
Borussia Dortmund] or receiving external funding [like Chelsea or Manchester
City]. But this is relatively rare. For example, Athletic Madrid won the Spanish
championship last year, marking the first time since 2003 that a club other than
Page | 33
Real Madrid or Barcelona took the prize. Hierarchies can, therefore, change. But
the concentration of capital makes that an unlikely long-term phenomenon.

Importantly, the hierarchy is at multiple levels because it follows the

dynamic game-patterns of Elias and Dunning. A young and talented African
footballer is spotted by a small European football club that negotiates for his
transfer. He trains with his new club, improving his skill and establishing himself
as a desirable resource. And then pattern of migration both repeats and shifts
upward, with his new club becoming the feeder club for one at a higher level.

Ghana international Michael Essien started his career with Liberty

Professionals in his hometown, Accra. He then shifted to Bastia, a second-tier
French club with whom he spent three season. He then shifted upwards again –
to Lyon, a club at the pinnacle of French domestic football. And after two years
with them, he moved up again, moving to Chelsea in England and then finally Real
Madrid.

On stage: Stadiums and fans: Football stadiums are real and concrete
representations concrete visualisations of the ethos and history of sets of social
and cultural capital. They represent more than just emotions, although a large
part of why they figure so prominently in a Durkheimian scheme of sacred items
within the religion of football is because the emotions that it generates acts as a
magnet, pulling in fans/worshippers.

The position of the stadium in this text is particularly important because it

is the only ‘sacred’ item, outside of the player, that has a corporeal reality. It
exists… a football stadium is a massive pile of concrete rising hundreds of feet
into the air and covering an area of a few square kilometres… it occupies a
significant position in the city’s skyline and, wittingly or unwittingly, becomes a
landmark for people who may use its location to establish personal spatial routes
or orientations.
 A football stadium has mass. And for that reason, any discussion on the role
of the stadium as a performance opportunity lends itself to the idea that it
defines, by practice if not intent, a nation or a nation-state. The Camp Nou in
Catalonia, home of Barcelona, is an oft-quoted example in this space, for it neatly
Page | 34
illustrates the conversion of a physical shell [the stadium] into a) a stage for the
performance of the Catalan identity, and b) a surrogate territory that is defined as
belonging completely to the Catalan culture [Catalonia cannot claim its geography
as a nation since the land, legally and morally, belongs to Spain, leaving only the
stadium as mud and soil and stone that is not Spanish territory].

The stadium was not constructed with the need for representation in mind.
The Nou Camp is, in terms of action and use, a football stadium. It only assumes
the mantle of performance opportunity through negotiation, hierarchy and
ritualisation of associative behaviour.

In other words, the Nou Camp’s position as the flag-bearer for Catalan
nationhood began within spaces where sequences of economic, social, political,
military and cultural events acted, evolved and influenced each other and the
Spanish and Catalan people, leading them to negotiate between themselves and
the Loyalists.

Civil war broke out in Spain in the 1930s, with the proximate cause being a
failed coup by a group of military generals. The war ended in 1939, with General
Franco establishing the Centre’s [the Loyalists] supremacyix. Unfortunately for the
Catalans and the Basques, they wound up on the losing side. And Franco, as any
good conqueror might look to do, sought to consolidate his position by confining
the extent of free space his enemies might have.

Among the more important freedoms that were curbed was language. And
this created an immediate sore point because one of the biggest claims to an
individual [non-Spanish] identity the Catalans and the Basques express is their
respective language. The already uneasy relationship between the capital
province of Spain – Castile – and Catalonia, was exacerbated by Franco’s decision
to ban the Catalan language and impose Castilian Spanish. And threatened with
the loss of their language, the Catalans negotiated the transfer of their identity
onto a convenient stage – Barcelona, the football club.

The performance of an identity through a stadium has often been

employed as an expression of purpose or dominance, particularly in the political Page | 35
arena. Just as Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Summer Olympics to promote Aryan
supremacy, dictators and political leaders in Spain, Italy and Argentina would
commission and build stadiums to emphasise strength and power.

The Bernabéu in Madrid was built at the behest of General Franco. Spain’s
victory in the 1964 European Championships over the USSR in that stadium was
the signal to release loads of propaganda. The Stadio Olimpico de Torino was built
by Benito Mussolini for the 1934 FIFA World Cup. Mussolini also built the Stadio
Olimpico in Rome, where both Lazio and Roma playx.

The connection between fans, their identities and the architecture of the
stadium is grounded in a concept called ‘topophilia’, which presents the idea that
physical spaces have an emotional connection to its occupants. Giulianotti cites
the work of John Bale, who, over 15 years, wrote extensively on the academic
study of sporting spaces. The concept also figures in Gaston Bachelard’s work xi.

The role of the stadium is explored through emotions generated by

occupancy of a structure. Consider the Estádio do Maracanã in Brazil, the Camp
Nou and the Bernabéu in Spain, and the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Italy as a few
examples. Each of these is the home stadium for some of the biggest football
clubs in the world. The Bernabéu, for example, is the home of Real Madrid, one of
the biggest and most successful clubs of all time and can seat more than 80,000
people. The Maracanã in Brazil is part of football folklore and has played host to
the biggest games and players in the sport. More importantly, at its peak, the
stadium could seat 199,854 peoplexii!

It does not take even the meanest imagination much time to comprehend
the incredible adrenaline and electricity generated by thousands of players and
supporters, every one of whom is intensely and completely focused on a game of
football. This energy, essentially a group phenomenon, is the basis of what
Durkheim means when he discusses the nature of effervescence.

These stadiums play crucial roles as the stage on which organised supporter
cultures enact sporting and cultural rituals that create atmosphere and intimacy. Page | 36
Organised displays of support include the concept of tifo, which draws from
aspects of South European [specifically Italian] culture and is today most
prevalent amongst fan groups in Eastern Europe, Italy and Spain.

It refers to the scale of supporters’ organisation –banners, flags and other

merchandise and paraphernalia designed to show support for their team. A tifo
could include anything from large banners spanning several feet and spread over
entire sections of the stands to aesthetically composed fireworks/flares display or
even organised singing and chanting.

The atmosphere each stadium generates is unique and is the product of a

specific social and cultural mind-set that is the ethos of the region in which the
club is based. For example, fans of Dutch club Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax
(AFC Ajax) often prominently display Israeli flags and the Star of David xiii. In
Spanish games, it is not uncommon for fans to wave white handkerchiefs to signal
their emotions [good or bad]. The custom is drawn from bullfighting – one of the
nation’s more venerable cultural artefacts – and has a strong link to the tradition
of gladiators at the Coliseum, who lived and/or died on the turn of the emperor’s
thumb.

The real takeaway, though, is the notion of performance. Bullfighting is

‘performed’ as an intrinsic part of a culture... gladiatorial contests were
‘performed’ as part of the Roman way of life... and all culturally significant
‘performances’ are acts of investing identities into the performer, so as to both
live through his/her eyes and achievements and also transcend individuality to
gain an almost psychic connection to a larger and more spiritual whole.

It is to that end tifos are so integral a part of a fan’s matchday experience.

Carrying your team’s colours [standards, in a military sense] into battle,
participating in the singing of war songs or a club’s anthem, creating tailored
chants to inspire some players and perhaps strike fear into the heart of the
opposition... these are critical elements in a fan’s arsenal and meant to convert a
physical construct – the stadium – into a living, breathing fortress.

A football stadium represents the stage on which rituals of support and Page | 37
declarations of identity are made. However, unlike the traditional model of a
stage, i.e. with demarcated performance and viewing areas, notions of
performance and theatricality with relation to football are omnipresent. It is both
the players and the spectators who are, simultaneously, actors and audience;
each influencing and drawing strength from the other.

On stage: Football players

Footballers, like football clubs, are in a difficult position.

From a practical perspective, a footballer’s best years are between 18 and his
early 30s. Most professional footballers are unlikely to earn contracts past the
mid-30s; at least, not contracts worth substantial amounts.

Some – like Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon (39) or Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimović (36) – will
continue to earn large sums of money well past that mark, while some others –
like Spain’s David Villa (35) and Xavi Hernandez (37) or Brazil’s Kaka (35) – may
move to less prominent football leagues, like the United States’ Major League
Soccer (MLS) for one last big paycheque.

For the majority though, that 12 to 15-year period between the time they turn
professional and the time they retire represents a significant chunk of their
lifetime earning potential… and this means it needs to be maximised.

And for the most part that doesn’t pose a problem – football clubs routinely
trade/transfer players between themselves, spending millions of pounds in the
process. And fans aren’t usually too concerned with players from rival clubs
joining their own.

But when the discussion shifts to marquee/totemic players, then it becomes

complicated… because footballers, like football clubs, have limited control over
what their bodies and actions mean to the fans… and therefore have limited
control over moving clubs.

Page | 38
If a football stadium is the stage on which identity is performed, it follows that the
football player is the actor. And in that role as ‘actor’, the football player is
invested with social and cultural capital borrowed from the larger identity space.
The concept of ‘borrowed capital’ is significant in football and particularly in the
context of the football player, because the roles the professional football player
enacts is not permanent.

Considering the larger picture of invested capital, while every football player who
plays for a club has some degree of capital borrowed from the club, a select few,
like Lampard, are special. They are icons... professionals who have risen above the
economics of football to earn a permanent place in the club’s legends and
folklore.

These are, to borrow another of Durkheim’s concepts, totemic players. The

totem is an extension of the concept that sees identity projected onto a tangible
and ‘real’ external object, like a football stadium. Used in its original context,
Durkheim suggests the collective life of a tribe is constituted of sub-groups, i.e.
the clan, each of which is represented by ‘...the name of a determined species of
material things [the totem] with which it believes that it has very particular
relations...’ (Durkheim 1965). The totem, for Durkheim, was the principal factor
that tied together sub-groups within the larger collective unit; the latter would
otherwise have difficulty in maintaining shared strength.

And, via that allegiance, each individual member of the tribe becomes
connected to the other, building an evolving network of supporters... much as a
tribe might grow its population by waging war and forcing prisoners to swear
fealty to the winner’s totem, on pain of death; of course, nothing quite so
dramatic is suggested here, although the question of violence in football and its
association with specific rivalries and origin stories presents an interesting space
for discussion.
 A totem can be any artefact or emotion that helps connect football and an
identity. Its only required qualification, in this space, is that it possess a ‘sacred’
energy – it should be something above and beyond the normal, the usual and the
everyday, so provide an uplifting experience.
Page | 39
The reason a football player is an important element in this text and is
considered as one of three stages for performance, is because this is the only
active stage. A football stadium is basically only a block of concrete and, as
Bachelard teaches us, its mere physicality is no guarantee of emotional or cultural
capital. The player, on the other hand, moves… he has the mobility that can be
translated/re-imagined as actually defending an ideal… an identity. The football
player is the soldier… the man in the trenches who actually goes toe-to-toe with
the enemy. And this is why almost any club and any fan demands commitment
and passion from the club’s players. Losing is bad but surrendering without a fight
is, in every fan’s eye, criminal.

The perfect example of how much one player can mean to the club is Luis Figo.
Now retired, the former Portuguese winger signed for Barcelona in 1995 and led
the club to two Spanish championships and two European titles in five years.

But then he left Barcelona for Real Madrid… and all hell broke loose.

“… Luis Figo on his first appearance against Barcelona, in Barcelona, wearing the
colours of Real Madrid. The football was the least of it… 105,000 souls packed
into Catalonia’s holiest temple. They bayed for the blood of the traitor…
Barcelona’s favourite son… could have gone to Milan or Manchester United and
the fans would have been upset, humiliated, hurt. But they might have forgiven
him, in time. But to quit Barcelona for Real… was a sin so epically unpardonable it
only bore the comparison with Judas’ betrayal of Christ.” (Carlin 2010: 214)

And just to make their displeasure absolutely clear, at one point in the match, a
pig’s head was thrown at a visibly shaken Figo.

In Durkheim’s study of religion, the totem distinguishes between clans; it is, in

effect, a flag or a similar identifying mark. More than that, it is also a common
space between society and god, marking a physical medium that allows man to
visit a spiritual space.

While not quite as abstract as the study of religion, totem players in

football – as Figo was to Barcelona fans - offer fans a deeper emotional Page | 40
connection to their own identity. Lampard, as a totem player, displays the mental
and emotional characteristics most valued by fans of Chelsea, who believe they
are seeing an expression of who they themselves are. The football player is, like
the stadium, the stage on which actionable cultural capital is used and traded.

Conclusion

To properly assess and understand the intersection of football and studies and
football

The performance of identity within and through football is a vast field of study. Its
size is not only due to the sheer popularity of the game, meaning rivalries and
hierarchies worth studying are to be found in England, Spain and Germany as well
as Kenya or Zaire or Australia, but also because of the intricate connections
football, as a social structure, has made with different parts of contemporary
society.

For example, the 2014 FIFA Football World Cup took place with much
fanfare, passion and verve in Brazil. And for one month, almost the entire world
had eyes only for the event. Yet, behind the scenes, how many knew the boost to
a small business owner in Pakistan, as a direct result of a tournament in Brazil?

The balls used during the tournament – the Adidas Brazuca – were
produced by a company in Sialkot in Pakistan. And in a report by The Hindu [dated
June 4, 2014], the factory owner, Khwaja Akhtar, was quoted:

“It was when I felt the roar of the crowd at the 2006 World Cup that I dreamt of a
goal of my own: to manufacture the ball for the biggest football tournament on
the planet. The people were chanting all around me. I just thought, this is the real
thing. I was part of the crowd. I never had that kind of feeling before.” xiv
 Pakistan does play football but it is decidedly not a sport that has much by
way of national support in that country; FIFA rankings on August 14, 2014 place
Pakistan at 164. Yet, to generate such depth of passion within Akhtar is quite an
interesting phenomenon.
Page | 41
The size and extent of football and related spaces means there is always so
much to study. For example, this text has made absolutely no reference to gender
in football. What is the story of the female football fan? Does she exist? How does
she interact with these spaces? Does gender matter?

Homosexuality and football is a hugely interesting space as well. For

example, earlier this year Liam Davis, a semi-professional English footballer came
out of the closet. At a more elite level, former German international and Aston
Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger has also admitted his sexuality; although the
German did so only after retiring from the game.

And all of these are identities – sexuality, gender, race, economic status –
all of these translate into positions in identity-spaces that are assigned on the
basis of the kind and value of capital on hand. And all of these are, to some
degree or the other, negotiable.

This text has sought to show how football becomes something larger than
itself – something that evolves from deep within the social and cultural fabric of
different social groups and grows to full form in a multiplicity of spaces, where
other groups and their identities come to play.

The crystallisation of contemporary football by school boys in 19th century

England and the spread of that crystallised form through colonial dominions
begins, in a sense, the performative history of the sport – the nexus between
sport, religion and war lending itself easily to interpretation and play by both the
coloniser and the colonised.

Within the spaces this text does occupy, football [club football specifically]
has been looked at as a series of divided yet linked social spaces occupied by sets
of individuals or a collective. Occupation of a position is determined by the
relationship with other individuals or collectives in that space and calculated by
the value of different forms of capital on hand. These relationships translate into
hierarchies within each space.

And football’s ability to project an identity – via its theatrical nature – helps
different cultures find a foothold. The presence and evolution of components of Page | 42
the game – stadiums, players and fans – enables cultural constructs to piggyback
on each of these components, drawing it deeper into the game and cross-linking
multiple spaces.

The mix of iconic players, their particular gestures, stadium/theatres with

significant cultural and historical import and designed to evoke specific feelings
and ideologies, as well as the roaring approval of tens of thousands of football
fans who live ‘larger than life’ collective identities through a player’s flick of the
ball, a back-heel pass or the symbolic sporting success of ‘their’ club against the
‘others’, played out in and through the dynamics of a sport that encourages and
infuses all those who watch and play it with an unmistakeable zest for life; a
carnival atmosphere; is but a brief and poor introduction to the sociological,
psychological, cultural and sporting marvel that is football.

The final word belongs to Sir Alex Ferguson - a manager whose uncompromising
passion for the game, its fans, its players and its philosophy led him to 12 straight
Premier League titles with Manchester United.

But perhaps more dramatically, he led his team to the UEFA Champions League
crown in 1999, beating German club Bayern Munich in a dramatic final. At the
post-match press conference, he famously said: “I can't believe it. I can't believe
it. Football. Bloody hell." (BBC, 2011)

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