Football is one of the most popular team sports in virtually all countries in the world. England’s Football Association points out that the ‘number of people playing football in England is on the rise with nearly one in five adults – 8.2 million people – now participating in the national game in some form’ (Football Association, 2015). Attendance of weekly matches is equally popular. Statistics suggest that the English Premier League (EPL) has the highest cumulative attendance in Europe (McPartlin, 2018). ‘The point is that absolutely no other human behaviour can gather these kinds of crowds’, sociologist David Goldblatt explains in an interview (Warburton, 2014).
A number of studies suggest that football plays an important role in teaching life skills, fostering social cohesion and overcoming class and racial barriers. ‘So certainly in the case of post-war England, what was the case in which young black men were most often seen publically? I mean there’s no question that it’s the football pitch. And so we can tell a story, not really metaphorical, but one that really bit into the structure of feeling of post-war Britain’, Goldblatt explains further (Warburton, 2014). This is not to belittle or downplay any of the outrageous racist slurs that football players of colour often still need to endure to this day. Rather, the emergence of non-white players in the 1950s should be construed a positive example of how cultural and racial diversity can be introduced to the mainstream in order to promote tolerance, acceptance and cohesion.
Pierre Bourdieu, one of the leading sociologists of the late twentieth-century, has written extensively on the relationship between leisure, sports and social positioning. Bourdieu traces the history of sport from its practice in aristocratic and bourgeois families of the nineteenth century to the sorts of popular games we witness today. For Bourdieu, it was first and foremost the importation of sports hitherto exclusive to the middle and upper classes into state schools that had given football a real boost in popularity.
Bourdieu notes that ‘this gradual autonomisation was accompanied by a process of rationalisation and the establishment of self-administered sports associations invested with the rights to standardise rules, to exercise disciplinary power, and to award prizes and titles’ (Laberge and Kay, 2002, p. 255). This combination explains a great deal of football’s attractiveness. Players do not only seek financial success in playing big games, they also accumulate social and cultural capital which cannot simply be purchased; playing is a mark of honour and outstanding talent, and therefore exclusivity. In terms of cultural and social capital, prestige and gain in social standing, a Nobel Prize in Medicine is much more worth than its monetary value. A similar development has occurred in football, which, of course, combines economic, cultural and social capital with recognition, stardom and notions of achievement, all of which help explain football’s attractiveness.
Contemporary social sciences focus predominantly on the issue of tolerance and homophobia in football. Journalist Owen Jones suggests that ‘football remains one of the greatest fortresses of homophobia’. However, employing data from 60 in-depth interviews from two Premier League academy football teams and one working-class university team, academic Rory Magrath suggests that the next generation of players has a much more nuanced and inclusive approach to traditionally laden questions of otherness (White, 2017). Our blog, site and app should therefore be construed a decisive tool to support these positive developments in football.
References
Football Association, 2015. Football participation continues to rise in England [WWW Document]. www.thefa.com. URL http://www.thefa.com/news/2015/jan/29/football-participation-on-rise (accessed 3.4.18).
Laberge, S., Kay, J., 2002. Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociocultural Theory and Sport Practice, in: Theory, Sport & Society. Elsevier.
McPartlin, P., 2018. Scottish football attendances ‘highest in Europe’ based on population. https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/competitions/premiership/scottish-football-attendances-highest-in-europe-based-on-population-1-4662193
Warburton, N., 2014. David Goldblatt on the Sociology of Football. Soc. Sci. Space. https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/06/david-goldblatt-on-the-sociology-of-football/
White, A., 2017. Inclusive Masculinities in Contemporary Football: Men in the Beautiful GameBy Rory Magrath. Routledge, 2016, Abingdon, UK. Sociol. Sport J. 34, 364–366. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2016-0136
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