Social significance of football

gufcfan

A friend of mine is doing a thesis centred around football and I thought it might be an interesting subject to discuss.

His thesis is centred around French football, but I think socially you can draw a lot of parallels, even if as a spectator sport they are light years away from each other in both countries.

You can't really talk about football in Ireland without talking about England. I am a LOI fan and do not support any English team, but I will be forced to kill a fluffy little bunny every time someone turns it into an argument about that.

Anyway...

In the last week we have seen the importance of football to people. The outrage shown at Henry's antics overtook that of any single action of the government throughout this recession we are currently in.

The fact that most football fans in this country choose to support a team in another country, usually considered to be our main rival at international level, is a quirk of geographical plantation not often seen in sport. Our consumption of British media has fed this to a large extent.

Football has helped integration a little in Ireland. Personally I have played football with people of many nationalities, most of which I would never have otherwise come into contact with.

Economically sport is important, but in this country is seems to only be a drain when you take the GAA out of the equation.

Importing and exporting of foreign players isn't really a big issue in Ireland as they are relatively few non-nationals playing here. Northern-Irish and other British nationals don't really count. The Premiership on the other hand... For example, the current Premier League leaders Chelsea, can only name 7 Englishmen among their 1st team squad of 30. You could say that 3 of that 7 won't be getting a regular starting berth any time soon, if ever.

Don't really have anything else to add, I just thought it might spark some intelligent debate.;)

civis_liberalis

gufcfan wrote: »

I just thought it might spark some intelligent debate.;)

On this forum?

Hoki

how many fluffy bunnies will you kill if it descends into an anti-french soccer thread

GavRedKing

Hoki wrote: »

how many fluffy bunnies will you kill if it descends into an anti-french soccer thread

Not nearly enough :pac:

carlop

Funnily enough I was talking to another poster on this forum about this yesterday. Considering the massive role football plays in the life of so many people, it is definitely neglected when it comes to sociological study.

I had to do a presentation as part of my Italian oral exam last year and did it on the ultra culture in Italy. It was only 5 minutes so I didn't really study it in too much depth. However, there seems to be a link between the depoliticization of Italian youth and the increase in both the size and activity of the various ultra groups in Italy.

Essentially, while in the past a large section of Italian youth would have identified itself with a particular political movement, they are now identifying themselves more and more with their football team. One writer, admittedly a former AC Milan ultra, even said that the ultra movement had been the only thing stopping many young people turning to drugs.

Paleface

gufcfan wrote: »

Economically sport is important, but in this country is seems to only be a drain when you take the GAA out of the equation.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. What is getting drained in other sports apart from GAA?

civis_liberalis

Paleface wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. What is getting drained in other sports apart from GAA?

What I understood from it was that the GAA is the only sport in the country at the moment able to stand on it's own two feet financially (sort of).

apoch632

One example he might be able to use from England is poppygate recently where the daily mail led a witch hunt against Manchester United and Liverpool over them not wearing a poppy on their shirts on remembence sunday. Which they managed to do for 91 years before that without much trouble.

In the lack of anything else drawing people together in the numbers(religion, politics etc) Football must now be seen to be doing things proper. Look at how the number of minutes silences have shot up in recent years. How everton playing in portugal is turned into a part of the find maddie campaign.

You can argue that its right or wrong but its certainly something that has been increasing in British society more and more. Football is now being used to fill the gaps where religion, politics, knowing your neighbours used to

There is an article in the latest United We Stand/Red Issue I cannot recall which one I'll post which one later when I get home. That goes into it in far more detail

Morzadec

Agree that this is an interesting topic and some interesting debates could be had. Op what is your friend's Thesis statement, it might help to ground the debate somewhat as there is an awful lot mentioned in your OP!

Not quite sure if this is relevant, but this thread reminded me of a presentation I did a couple of years back in college for my Popular Culture class. The class was a lot about the clash between culture and capital, and I used this as a framework to discuss footballing culture and football as a global product. Not sure how relevant it is to the thread as it would be more about the cultural significance of football rather than the social significance of it.

It's long enough but I thought some might be interested in giving it a read.


The purpose of this presentation is to examine the sport of football as a popular culture form, its worldwide impact and significance, and how it informs and is relevant to popular culture debates about the clash of culture and capital. Football is arguably the most widely consumed, significant and influential form of popular culture today. The World Cup, football’s premier competition held every four years, is the most viewed sporting event in the world with over 715 million viewers estimated to have watched the 2006 final[1]. It is not only the extent of football’s popularity that is astounding, however, it is the extreme devotion and passion with which many follow the game; Bill Shankly once famously remarked that: - “Football is not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that.”[2] The significance of football in many people’s lives as well as their emotional and financial investment in the game is often incomprehensible to some non-football fans who view football as ‘only a game.’ The aim of this presentation is to suggest that a cultural phenomenon as influential and popular as football deserves a less confined reading.

The famous broadcaster and author Melvyn Bragg emphasizes the importance of football in cultures worldwide by including ‘The Book of Rules of Association Football’ in his ‘Twelve Books that Changed the World’.[3] The book essentially set concrete rules of what was a popular game in Britain and hence legitimized it as a sport. Following its publication, football matches would adhere to these rules, which enabled its popularity to spread first nationally, and later globally. There is no doubt that the book changed the game of football dramatically, but one might wonder how Bragg can assert that it changed the world? Other books included by Bragg in his list are seminal works that had colossal effects on politics, social life, philosophy, religion and science; ‘On the Origin of Species’ by Charles Darwin which posited the theory of evolution, exploding creationist myths and hence impacting massively on religious, philosophical and scientific thought; ‘The Vindication of the Rights of Women’ by Mary Wollstonecraft, which arguably gave birth to feminism, whose impact on the modern world can not be underestimated; ‘The Wealth of Nations’ by Adam Smith, essentially the manifesto of free market capitalism which dominates our lives today; ‘The King James Bible’ whose moral and spiritual code is followed by 1.5 billion Christians worldwide. The inclusion of ‘The Book of Rules of Association Football’ alongside such massively influential works might seem startling and unjustified to many, as essentially football is, as is often heard, ‘only a game’. However, to dismiss football as such is to ignore the cultural, financial, emotional and even political significance that it plays in the lives of a massive proportion of the global population. Bragg argues that ‘...it has become more than a game. It has tribal followings, produces icons, and provokes passions not far removed from extreme politics.’[4] Football fans invest huge amounts of time and money into supporting their team – it was widely reported that many Irish fans re-mortgaged their homes to follow the Irish national teams’ progress in the 1990, 1994 and 2002 World Cups. Football consumes the leisure time and money of millions worldwide and the astounding lengths that many football fans go to in order to support their team demonstrates the centrality of football in their lives. The emotional impact that football can have on football fans also reveals its influence on them; it is not uncommon to see fans brought to tears of ecstasy or despair depending on their teams fortunes. Rivalries between opposing football teams are intense and often have broader religious and political implications, such as the Celtic and Rangers rivalry in Glasgow. Hooligan groups often identify themselves with political extremes, particularly in Italy where there are numerous fascist fan groups and some extreme leftist groups. Hooliganism is synonymous with racism and violence, particularly in Eastern Europe, and deaths and serious injuries are not unheard of when rivalling hooligan factions clash. Yet hooligans are only a minority of football fans and while their political extremism, racism and violence demonstrates that football is more than ‘just a game’, they are not representative of the game as a whole, whose universal appeal breaks down national and racial barriers.
Eight out of ten people worldwide were expected to watch something of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.[5] This astounding figure shows the widespread influence of football. As Bragg states, football has become ‘...part of the national consciousness of almost every country.’[6] It is interesting to note that football’s governing body FIFA has more member nations (204) than the U.N. (191).[7] The World Cup epitomizes the global influence of football, and its role in the bringing together of people from different nations, with different cultures and languages. Bragg describes football as a ‘...form of universal language’[8]. This can be understood both literally (key footballing terms such as ‘football’, ‘goal’, and ‘captain’ are very similar across differing languages) and metaphorically (an understanding and appreciation for the game, national pride, and a recognition of the emotional highs and lows that football fans share regardless of nation, race or language). So while they might not understand each other’s languages, football fans can communicate with each other through the universal language of football. Mark Ives, who was involved in football coaching charity work in Botswana, states: - ‘All you need is a ball and some kids and they all start speaking the international language of football.’[9] Simon Kuper argues that football has gone a long way to combating racism in Britain and elsewhere: - ‘Football’s gift was to make racism seem unpatriotic’[10] (a large percentage of the English national team, as well as other European national teams, are black). Football players have become global iconic figures; an image of Roy Keane would gain immediate recognition worldwide, while an image of Bertie Ahern would be largely unrecognisable to most. Thus, due to its global appeal and popularity, football is very easily marketable as well as money-spinning. According to Bragg, ‘advertisers insist that only sex beats football in terms of shifting products.’[11] Thus financially-speaking, football is a massive industry, and like all industries, it has become ever-increasingly influenced by global capitalism.

Football was, and to a certain degree still is, considered a working-class game. Most football players come from working class backgrounds and the ‘...first and key mass of participants [were] the British working classes.[12]’ Thus, much as high cultural forms such as serious literature were (and to an extent still are) associated with upper-class elitists, footballing culture was largely working-class. And much as upper-class elitists such as Matthew Arnold bemoaned the effect that capitalism and the mass media has had on art, one could argue that the working-class ‘elite’ of football view money as corruptive and destructive to footballing culture. The modern game has become increasingly influenced by money, due to, as mentioned earlier its global popularity. Like any other industry, football is subject to the laws of economics: - demand for football is high, thus the amount of money it generates is also high. Some top players earn over £100,000 per week, but with stadiums with capacities of up to 70,000 filled every week and fans willing to pay up to £500 per ticket, this is hardly surprising. Media and money has changed footballing culture – before the 1980s matches were largely attended by working-class men only in packed terraces, whereas now they are more family-friendly experiences. Rupert Murdoch realised what a potentially lucrative business football was and bought the television rights for the English Premiership in the early nineties for Sky. Television has widened its appeal and made it far more accessible. Yet football purists argue that this has ruined the game as its interests are now purely financial, rather than footballing. This is comparable to how high-culture elitists suggest that the influence of money on art taints it, as it is motivated by financial gain rather than artistic concerns. Footballing examples of this are numerous. Players are generally motivated primarily by money rather than any notion of club loyalty with local players tending not to stay with their local team. Hence one might argue that the teams’ identity is somewhat lost. Most of the top English teams have only a handful of English players; England’s top team at the moment Arsenal have none in their usual starting eleven. This perceived ‘corruption’ of footballing culture by money is most obviously exemplified by the recent takeovers of English football clubs by American owners, and the subsequent resistance to these takeovers. 20% of Premiership teams are now owned by Americans. These Americans are billionaires who have little knowledge of, and arguably little interest in the sport, and hence their incentive for their investment is purely financial. Many fans were angry and apprehensive about these takeovers, expressing fears about a rise in ticket prices and a lack of respect for their clubs footballing tradition. The U.S. is the embodiment of capitalism and cultural imperialism, and football fans of Manchester United were fervently against the American Glazer family’s takeover of what they consider to be their club, staging violent protests. Similar protests have taken place in Liverpool against the Gillette and Hicks ownership of the club and the phrase ‘Yanks Out’ has been immersed into footballing discourse. Football fans feel the cultural significance of their sport slipping away due to the effect of globalisation on the game – it is no longer their game; it is a business motivated by one concern – profit. This in turn could lead to tickets being priced out of the affordable range of die-hard fans. It has also led to what the majority of football fans consider a ridiculous proposal by the Premier League – to stage one extra game every season in the far-east. It is purely a money spinning exercise to promote the Premier League’s brand globally, and demonstrates the extent to which football now operates within a global capitalist ideology. The plan is at odds with the majority of the fans wishes for numerous reasons, but largely because it is not compatible with footballing tradition. Thus it is not only high-art culture which views global capitalism as corruptive; many football fans claim their footballing culture is also under threat. The prevailing opposition to this perceived threat is further evidence that football holds a cultural meaning and significance for fans that is comparable to the cultural significance that revered works of art holds for a high-culture elitist. Telling a football fan that football is ‘just a game’ is no different to telling a high-brow literary critic that ‘Ulysees’ is just a book.

[1] Melvyn Bragg, ‘Twelve Books that Changed the World’, (England, Hodder and Stoughton, 2006)

[2] http://www.surfersam.com/friends/football2.htm, date accessed, 28.2.08

[3] Melvyn Bragg, ‘Twelve Books that Changed the World’, (England, Hodder and Stoughton, 2006)


[4] Melvyn Bragg, ‘Twelve Books that Changed the World’, (England, Hodder and Stoughton, 2006)


[5] Melvyn Bragg, ‘Twelve Books that Changed the World’, (England, Hodder and Stoughton, 2006)


[6] ibid

[7] ibid

[8] ibid

[9] ibid

[10] ibid

[11] ibid

[12] ibid

gufcfan

Morzadec wrote: »

Agree that this is an interesting topic and some interesting debates could be had. Op what is your friend's Thesis statement, it might help to ground the debate somewhat as there is an awful lot mentioned in your OP!

"What significance has French football had on the French nation / La signification du football Francais sur la nation Francaise."

I'm not trying to limit the debate to the thesis subject matter really. I just thought that it might be an interesting subject in general.

flahavaj

The moral disintegration of modern society is mirrored in the deterioration of all that was once good about football.

/thread

The_Kew_Tour

found interesting article in the english newspaper yesterday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/frances-crisis-of-national-identity-1826942.html

Morzadec

flahavaj wrote: »

The moral disintegration of modern society is mirrored in the deterioration of all that was once good about football.

/thread

Is that you John Giles?

adrian280582 wrote: »

found interesting article in the english newspaper yesterday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/frances-crisis-of-national-identity-1826942.html

Interesting read

CantGetNoSleep

In France that brings in a much bigger question than Irl / Eng - immigration