The suspicion lingers that sport and football have been neglected as they are viewed with apprehension as ‘western’ or ‘un-Asian’ activities. Of course, sports such as football were introduced by Europeans, but they have long been indigenized. Indeed, any assumption that such activities are not enjoyed by, and practised with considerable skill by, south Asians is a curious echo of the attitudes of the colonial period when the British constructed Indians as non-sporting as part of an Orientalist strategy to represent them as moral and racial inferiors
James Mills & Paul Dimeo (2001): Introduction: Empire, Nation, Diaspora, Soccer &Society, 2:2, 1-16
Sport and society are clearly connected, but the question of normal sport is not straightforward. What passes for social normality is constructed historically and within the context of dominant ideas, structures, institution sand behaviours: capitalist normality produces a sport in its own image,alienation, exploitation, oppression and all, albeit a sport whose forms change with the unfolding of capitalist contradictions. Sport is neither an expression of some natural competitive spirit imputed to all of humanity by bourgeois ideology nor a simple and unqualified extension of play: sport is too heavily laden with competition, routine, success and failure to be equated with the playful pursuit of pleasure.
Adrian Budd (2001): Capitalism, Sport and Resistance: Reflections, Culture, Sport, Society, 4:1,1-18
Chance does not consistently dominate the game of football, just as ability doesn’t either. It’s mostly a mixture of both, sometime one factor more dominant, sometimes the other. The thrill is that when you go to the game, you don’t know what the mixture will be this time—anything (or nearly anything) can happen. As Les Ferdinand famously put it, “I was surprised, but I always say nothing surprises me in football.
Richards, Ted (2010). Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (Kindle Locations 652-654). Open Court. Kindle Edition.
In 1921 Dick Kerr’s Ladies and every other women’s club were banned from FA-registered stadiums, setting the women’s game back seventy years. Women’s football was relegated to odd public and private spaces, parks and municipal pitches. Cut off from formal systems of coaching or finances, the game was reduced to a peripheral and rather odd-looking subculture. Having conceded the vote, European male society was in no mood to concede anything else. Women’s football, prohibited by regulation, was then diminished by the power of ideology – the widespread belief systems of a medical and scientific culture that could still be claiming in the 1920s, in a journal as august as The Lancet, that football was too rough and dangerous a game for the female body. The revival of the women’s game would have to await the discrediting of these arguments and an era in which the formal equality of the suffrage was understood as the beginning rather than the end of the matter.
Goldblatt, David (2007). The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football (Kindle Locations 3442-3449). ePenguin. Kindle Edition.
If I were a boy I would wear what I want, drink beer with my friends, and then go to the stadium. I would watch the game and scream until I lost my voice. I would express my emotions freely and I would curse if something rubbed me the wrong way. If I were a boy I would challenge whoever I want, I would give everything for ninety minutes, and then I would finish the night in a bar. But I am not a boy.
Do I still have the right to do all these things? One would think that in a liberal and emancipated world, this should not be a problem. But it often enough is. The media provides the best example. While men comfortably watch a game, women appear in beer ads and supply drinks—the division of gender roles could not be clearer. Society as a whole reflects these images. Stadium owners try to help poor females by lowering the prices for them—which only reaffirms stereotypes of them being inferior. Women are pigeonholed although they have done nothing wrong.
We do not want reduced tickets or any kind of special treatment! We do not want pity and condescension, nor do we want to justify ourselves for what we do! We want to be accepted! We, and many other girls, live for soccer. We give one hundred percent during the entire game, and we try to support our club in any way we can. Is all this worth less, just because we are women? Do we really have to disguise ourselves and leave behind the last bit of femininity in order to get some recognition?
.. Why is it okay if women are treated differently because of their gender? Is this not discrimination? Do we have to stand by when others throw dirt on our name just to provoke us? Are we supposed to ignore all this just to be accepted in a man’s world?
We no longer want our intelligence, our knowledge, our thoughts, and our experiences belittled just because we have entered the apparently last male domain. Is it not sad that men feel so threatened by the mere presence of women? Men cover their insecurities through particularly tough behavior, at times making stadium visits for women unbearable. Is that really how it should be?
The SenhoritHAs Jena are a part of the Ultra group Horda Azzuro, supporting FC Carl Zeiss Jena in Thuringia, Germany. “If I Were a Boy” was written and distributed in early 2009. Translated by Gabriel Kuhn. (via
kalieghsi)
Of course, one has to be careful not to be a mere traditionalist. “Back in the good old days” tirades are as tiresome in football as anywhere else, and slogans like “For Tradition—Against Commerce,” commonly seen in European football stadiums today, usually belong to the repertoire of right-wing “anti-capitalists.” Innovation is fine, also for the game of soccer. Besides, not all aspects of the commercialization are bad. Arguably, it has contributed to more diversity on the stands in terms of gender and race: there is little to be romanticized about almost exclusively white and male terraces, no matter how working-class they may be. However, the goal must be innovation that challenges bigotry in football culture without delivering the game to corporate interests. Social problems within the working classes are not solved by banning workers, but by giving them opportunities to partake in the management of the sport.
Gabriel Kuhn (2011). Soccer vs. the State (Kindle Locations 1604-1609). PM Press. Kindle Edition. (via
kalieghsi)
[The] football renaissance has left the rich clubs richer and the poor almost bankrupt. It is a mirror image of society in general. […] The gulf between the Premiership and the Football League [the lower levels of professional football in England] is widening. The 20 Premier clubs generate […] a total income of […] more than twice the amount of the 72 league clubs combined.
Gabriel Kuhn (2011). Soccer vs. the State (Kindle Locations 1534-1537). PM Press. Kindle Edition.
