Abstract
This paper coins the term ‘football patriotism’ to describe the open, expressive handling of national symbols (e. g. flags, anthems, national colors) in the context of international football events. Based on a representative online survey of the adult German population (N = 1092), which was carried out in the course of the 2016 UEFA EURO, this paper presents, for the first time, empirical findings on three essential questions: (1) Which proportion of the German population was involved in which forms of football-related patriotic behavior? (2) To what extent does this proportion vary between different social demographic groups? (3) Which political and ideological attitudes are associated with football patriotism? The results illustrate that roughly 15% of German adults were involved in three or more different patriotic actions during the EURO. This proportion was lower among older, East German and immigrant respondents and higher in families with children. Football patriots positioned themselves less often as politically ‘left’ and endorsed patriotic and nationalistic statements more strongly.
Zusammenfassung
Als „Fußballpatriotismus“ wird in diesem Beitrag der offene, expressive Umgang mit nationalen Symbolen (Flaggen, Nationalfarben etc.) im Rahmen internationaler Fußballgroßereignisse bezeichnet. Auf der Basis einer repräsentativen Online-Erhebung in der erwachsenen Bevölkerung Deutschlands (N = 1092), die im Rahmen der UEFA-Europameisterschaft 2016 stattfand, stellt der Beitrag erstmals empirische Befunde zu drei grundlegenden Fragen vor: (1) Welcher Anteil der erwachsenen Deutschen war in welche fußballpatriotischen Handlungen involviert? (2) Wie stark variiert dieser Anteil in verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen? (3) Wie lässt sich das Phänomen politisch-ideologisch einordnen? Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen u. a., dass etwa 15 % der erwachsenen Deutschen in drei oder mehr unterschiedliche patriotische Handlungen während der EM involviert waren. Der Anteil ist niedriger bei älteren, ostdeutschen und eingewanderten Personen und höher in Familien mit Kindern. „Fußballpatrioten“ verorteten sich seltener politisch „links“ und befürworteten patriotische und nationalistische Aussagen stärker.
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Notes
According to a press release from the University of Hohenheim, solely for the FIFA World Cup 2014 every German aged 16 years or older spent on average 12.75 € on football merchandise and fan articles, c.f. www.uni-hohenheim.de/uploads/tx_newspmfe/pm_WM_Voeth_PM_3_Marketing_2014-06-12_status_10.pdf (06.09.2017).
So far, some studies have investigated the relationship between international football events and national pride in Germany based on non-representative data (Mutz, 2013; Mutz & Gerke, 2017; Von Scheve, Beyer, Ismer, Kozlowska, & Morawetz, 2014). Findings from these studies generally indicate that national pride increases during FIFA World Cup and UEFA championships. This increase is more pronounced among individuals and groups with a higher interest in football and higher emotional entrainment during the matches.
In contrast to patriotism, the concept of nationalism refers to an idealization of one’s own nation, demanding unconditional, blind loyalty and, at the same time, considering foreign nations as inferior and less valuable. Nationalism always implies a devaluation of others.
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Funding
This study received funding from the German Federal Institute of Sport Science (BISp). It was part of the research project “Effects of High-Performance Sport on Collective Identification in the Nation-State” (Grant Number: 070093/15-17).
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M. Mutz declares that he has no competing interests.
This article does not contain any studies with human patients or animals performed by any of the authors.
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Table A1: Data collection periods during the 2016 UEFA EURO. Table A2: Sample demographics compared to official Mikrozensus data. Table A3: Overview of items on the patriotism and nationalism scales. Figure A1: Number of different football-related patriotic actions performed during the EURO
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Mutz, M. Football-related patriotism in Germany and the 2016 UEFA EURO. Ger J Exerc Sport Res 48, 287–292 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-018-0490-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-018-0490-7