Ethnic Identity and Team Selection: Pride and Money

Many clubs in the world have extremely strong ethnic identities. Everyone knows that Celtic represent the Catholic half of Scotland (and most of Ireland for that matter) while Rangers are supported by the Protestants. But some clubs take their club’s identity to another level and only have players of a certain nationality or ethnicity. Here are several examples:

1. 1. Athletic Bilbao represents that city in Spain. They also see themselves as representing the entire Basque region and as such only use Basque players (there have been some exceptions, click here for more information).
   2. Chivas of Guadalajara prides itself on using only Mexican players. Throughout its over 100 year history, Chivas have never fielded a non-Mexican (this is contrast to their biggest rivals, Club America, who make a habit of bringing in expensive foreigners). Ironically, Chivas was founded by a Belgian, Edgar Everaert, although their current owner, is Mexican vitamin magnate Jorge Vergara.
   3. Vergara is also responsible for another club exclusively fielding players of one nationality. In 2003, the Mexican purchased the Costa Rican team Deportivo Saprissa and implemented the same policy which had given Chivas such popularity in his home country. Since Vergara took over, Saprissa have fielded only Costa Ricans.
   4. Jorge Vergara also attempted to implement a similar policy when he founded Chivas USA of MLS in 2004. Vergara initially said he would field a team of all Latinos. This policy was quickly scrapped as Vergara realized that it would lead to a rather unsuccessful team.

I’m sure there are other teams with such a strong ethnic identity and which field teams of players exclusively of one ethnicity or nationality, but they escape me right now. In the cases of all the teams above, it is interesting to note that their decision to field only a certain type of player is based on both sporting and business concerns. While they see it as a point of pride that players of a certain stripe succeed, the clubs also gain support from those who agree with their exclusivist policies. Chivas especially has obtained its status as the most popular team in Mexico in part because of its policy of fielding only Mexican players. Ethnic identity is not just a matter of pride, it can also be a money-maker.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Economics, Europe, General, History, Latin America, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.