Football and Politics

Abstract

This chapter proposes a conceptual and historical discussion of the relationship between football and politics. Football and politics are commonly presented in the academic environment as antagonistic fields. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the opposite. The more football affirms and legitimizes itself as neutral or apolitical, the more it becomes effectively political. Not infrequently, in order to legitimize itself as a social practice, football has had to deny politics, to distance itself from it, as if it could establish itself as a field of its own. Despite the success of this strategy, football has never detached itself from politics. In the limit, it means that football, in order to legitimize itself as an autonomous social phenomenon, had to deny politics. It is in this political place of neutrality that it is recognized and that it asserts itself. That is why we inquired about this relationship. In order to do so, we analyse some historical moments of the practice of football, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present day, demonstrating how the football structure has always made use of politics to achieve its interests, be they sportive, financial or power scaling.