In addition to my regular writing, I will be writing about the most interesting stories I find in my research on the culture of soccer. I hope they are of interest to you as well. And what better way to get a picture of Levar Burton (anybody else grow up with Reading Rainbow?) onto the blog?
Probably the most interesting story I came across this week was from Frank Dell’Appa at Soccernet. Dell’Appa tells the story of Giles Heron, an African-American who played for Celtic (yes, that Celtic) in the 1950s. I had no idea.
The Guardian does the best soccer coverage in the world, in my opinion. They provide the goods again this week. Their Spain corrspondent writes about the fight in Spain between chairmen of Seville rivals Sevilla and Betis. I always thought it was funny that chairmen of opposing teams in Spain sit together at games; now we find out it’s just asking for trouble. Eastern European correspondent Jonathan Wilson writes about why, despite the infusion of rubles from the oil and gas industry in the country, Russian soccer still hasn’t quite made it. And Irish coverage is provided by Barry O’Donovan, who writes about Shelbourne, last year’s Irish League champion who have since gone bankrupt and had to sell off all of their players.
Reuters has a piece about Barcelona’s defender Oleguer, who recently lost his sponsorship deal with Kelme for his controversial comments about a member of ETA, the Basque nationalist organization, who is currently on a hunger strike. Oleguer is known for being a strong suppoter of regional autonomy (he is Catalan) and he told a press conference that, “I wanted to use the De Juana case as an example to question the independence of the judiciary from political power.” When he came on as a sub last weekend, the cameras did a close up on his cleats, which were made by Kelme (perhaps he bought them himself).
Closer to home, the Steven Goff of the Washington Post writes about the fascinating story of Guy Roland-Kpene, an immigrant from Ivory Coast who is currently trying to earn a roster spot for DC United. And the Idaho Statesman of all places, has an article about how soldiers from that state are helping Kurds, displaced by Saddam Hussein’s “Arabization” policy, who are resettling in Kirkuk. Many of them are living, at least temporarily, in and around the soccer stadium in that northern Iraqi city.
And a few snippets to finish off. These are shorter things I came across and which I might look into more in the future and write about more completely. If you’ve got any information on them, please leave a comment.
There is a team in Pakistan’s Premier League called Afghan FC. I wonder if they are made up of Afghan refugees to that country.
The US Soccer Foundation lists members of the Congressional Soccer Caucus from the 109th Congress. I’m still waiting to see who joins in the recently begun 110th Congress. Perhaps they’re too busy discussing trivial matters like Iraq (I joke, I joke).
Emelec, a team based in Guayacil, Ecuador, was founded by an American businessman named George Capwell. Many South American teams were founded by the British, but this is the only one I know of founded by an American. Their stadium is called Estadio George Capwell. Wikipedia says that one of the players on their 1957 “dream team” was named Yu Lee. Where was he from?
Coming out threatens to expose the homoerotic components of what they prefer to think of as simply male bonding. And it generally is. It’s not so much that there’s a repressed homosexuality at play (except for a small minority), only that there’s a tremendous fear that the behavior might be labeled as such. Or, as I heard the anti-gay epithets pour forth that gay men in the locker room would somehow violate this sacred space by sexualizing it.’
Amaechi knew he would get some negative responses to his decision to come out and another former NBA player, Tim Hardaway, obliged, letting fly on a Miami radio station. Hardaway ranted, “yeah, I’m homophobic,” insisted he “hate[s] gay people,” and said that “[homosexuality] shouldn’t exist in the world or in the United States.”
Amaechi took it in stride, telling ABC News he wasn’t surprised. “To me, it’s astonishing that anybody would be surprised to hear them,” he said.
Amaechi’s lack of surprise probably came, at least in part, because he is almost surely aware of another English athlete who came out. When the former Norwich City striker Justin Fashanu came out in an interview with British tabloid The Sun in 1990, he did not expect the response he received. “I genuinely thought that if I came out in the worst newspapers and remained strong and positive about being gay,” he was quoted as saying, “there would be nothing more that [people] could say.” In fact, the opposite occurred.
The denunciations began with Justin Fashanu’s own brother, John, himself a professional soccer player. John Fashanu said bluntly, “My gay brother is an outcast” and disowned him. His manager, the often-lionized Brian Clough, followed suit calling Fashanu a “bloody poof.” Fashanu was denounced by many blacks in England for “bringing shame on their race.” Tony Sewell, columnist for black weekly magazine The Voice, wrote,
[We] are sick and tired of tortured queens playing hide and seek around their closets. Homosexuals are the greatest queer-bashers around. No other group of people are so preoccupied with making their own sexuality look dirty.
Given the response of family, coaches, and members of the media, it is hardly surprising that the British public’s response to Fashanu’s coming out was largely negative. The groundwork for the homophobic chants that would follow from the terraces of stadiums across England was laid by the attitudes of those in power. Fashanu committed suicide in 1998 and the response to his coming out surely played a part in the tragic end to his life.
(Fashanu was a very troubled man, however, and his sexuality was not the only reason for his suicide. At the time of his death, there was also a warrant out for his arrest in Maryland for having sex with a 17 year-old boy.)
So, will John Amaechi in 2007 be treated in the same way as Justin Fashanu 17 years ealier? The United States and Britian have moved forward on issues of gay rights, to be sure, and there is much wider acceptance of homosexuality in society at large. But if Amaechi’s announcement shows us anything, it may be that homophobia retains a strong presence in sports.
Tim Hardaway was not the only NBA player to make his feelings known about gay players. Oliver Irish writes on the Guardian Unlimited sports blog about the responses of several current NBA stars. He quotes the Sixers’ Steven Hunter saying “As long as he don’t [sic] make any advances toward me I’m fine with it.†LeBron James insisted it is all a matter of trust:
With team-mates you have to be trustworthy, and if you’re gay and you’re not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy. So that’s like the No1 thing as team-mates – we all trust each other. You’ve heard of the in-room, locker room code. What happens in the locker room stays in there. It’s a trust factor, honestly.
Irish adroitly analyzes the underlying attitudes present in such pronouncements:
You don’t need to be a master of the subtext to see that Hunter, like so many athletes, is pretty far from cool with sharing a locker room with a gay man. It speaks volumes for the rampant vanity of many sports stars today that Hunter would qualify his tolerance – and it is mere tolerance, rather than acceptance – of Amaechi’s sexuality in such terms: “Sure, I’ll play ball with the guy. We’ll just be two sweaty, muscular black men trying manfully to get a rubber ball through a hoop… but if he tries to touch my balls in the showers, boy, there will be a ruckus.”
But these remain isolated examples in a sports environment which remains, by and large, wary of homosexuals, if not overtly hostile toward them. In December, Simon Kuper of the Financial Times reported on three gay players in Germany who were set to come out of the closet. As of yet, none has. John Amaechi is to be applauded for having the courage to announce he is a gay athlete. But sadly, the response to John Amaechi’s coming out may indicate not how far the world of sports has come in its attitudes about homosexuality, but how far it still has to go.
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Soccer is often seen as a tool for conflict resolution. During World War I, German and British soldiers called a “Christmas Truce” and celebrated the holiday by organizing a soccer game between the warring sides. Ivory Coast’s qualification for the 2006 World Cup was seen as helping to heal the wounds of 17 years of Civil War. Yaya Toure said at the time, “Politics means we are divided, but I think football can sort that out.”
While soccer has often helped to heal rifts, soccer fields have also been the sites of political violence. Unfortunately, nearly every example of peace brought about in a stadium can be matched by an atrocity perpetrated on the pitch. Such atrocities have occurred throughout the world. Given soccer’s unrivaled global popularity, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the best and worst of human nature has been witnessed on its fields.
I began writing this post on political violence on the soccer field with a few examples in mind (Afghanistan, Chile, and Rwanda). With just a bit of research have come up with many, many more. I am sure there are examples I have not documented here; I had to stop looking in order to share what I have compiled.
I have broken the examples of political violence on soccer fields into the regions in which they occurred. I want to stress that these are all examples of political violence on the field. We all know about hooligans who bring violence to stadiums, but they are not what I am focusing on here.
Asia
Long before the Taliban gained worldwide notoriety as the hosts of terror network Al Qaeda, it was primarily known for its brutal human rights violations. Chief among these was the public execution of violators of its extreme interpretation of Islamic law. In 1999, a woman named Zarmeena was accused of murdering her husband with a hammer as he slept. Zarmeena was brought to the national stadium and publicly executed on the dirt field, which still had soccer markings. The AP reported at the time:
Zarmeena was taken from the back of a pickup truck that drove into the sports stadium. Two female police officers, both in deep blue burqas, held Zarmeena’s arms. Witnesses said the convicted woman walked slowly, each step followed by a pause. When she reached the center of the field she was ordered by one of the women to sit.
Behind her a young Taliban soldier, his head wrapped in the traditional turban, took aim with his Kalashnikov rifle. But suddenly Zarmeena stood up and tried to flee. A policewoman stopped her and forced her to sit, said witnesses.
The Taliban soldier moved closer and shot her three times.
Afterward from the crowd several people shouted “God is great.”
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan has the full AP report, complete with photos and a video (warning: it’s very gruesome).
After overthrowing the Taliban 2001, the ISAF (Internationl Security Assistance Forces) realized how potent the image of the soccer stadium is. What better propaganda coup than replacing public executions with an actual soccer match? They organized a game in 2001 between an Afghan team and a group of their forces.
Soccer returns to Afghanistan’s National Stadium
The Taliban may have gotten the idea of using stadiums for public executions from the Chinese, who used the tactic for years. Although capital punishment in China is now carried out in private by lethal injection, for years the Communist government used very public ceremonies to execute its criminals.
The Ottawa Citizen reported in 1994 that “In Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, photographs from a September sentencing at a sports stadium were displayed prominently in the city centre for at least two months.” In 1998, 30 people were killed in the soccer stadium in the southern city of Shenzhen. 2001 saw public executions in stadiums, again in Sichuan province. A report by Amnesty International in that same year suggested that mass executions were occurring at the Beijing Workers’ Stadium, which will host games at the 2008 Olympics.
Condemned criminals are paraded before a crowd in a stadium in Chengdu in 2001
East Timor was the site of extreme political violence during the 1990s, as it fought for independence from Indonesia. A soccer stadium in Dili, capital of the former Portuguese colony, was the site of alleged torture by Australian troops sent there to stabilize the country. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2003 that members of an anti-independence militia group “were marched by their Australian Army captors from the Aitarak headquarters in Dili to an empty football stadium. There they were forced into the wasp-infested toilets and had their heads pushed down toilet bowls.”
Africa
Political violence and soccer have been prevalent throughout Africa’s history. In 1979, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported on refugees from Angola who claimed that “public mass executions took place frequently at a soccer stadium near the Angolan capital of Luanda.”
15 years later, Rwanda was the site of extreme political and ethnic violence. During the 1994 genocide, 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. Many of these murders took place in soccer stadiums. A report titled “A Quantitative Analysis of Genocide in Kibuye Prefecture, Rwanda” lists 4,500 people killed at Kibuye Stadium and nearly 3,500 killed at Gatwaro Stadium. Thousands of others were murdered at stadiums across Rwanda.
Trials against leaders of the genocide led to many death penalty sentences. In 1998, the Globe and Mail reported that the first 33 people convicted of being involved in the genocide were themselves put to death in a public execution in a soccer stadium in the capital, Kigali.
Latin America
One of the most well known instances of political violence occurring in a soccer stadium occurred in Chile. Shortly after seizing power in a military coup, dictator Augusto Pinochet rounded up many thousands of his political enemies and took them to the National Stadium, where they remained for several months. Conditions in the stadium were awful, with torture common. Many murders were also carried out at the stadium. A Chilean commission studying the torture later offered even more details:
[T]he room for medical treatment was sometimes used for [torture]. Firing squads were simulated and other cruel techniques were employed. As a rule the prisoners were subjected to constant and intense interrogation.
The representatives and medical representatives of the IRCC (International Red Cross Committee) have found that many prisoners show signs they have undergone psychological and physical torture.
This Commission also concluded that a number of executions took place inside the National Stadium.
Prisoners stand on the terraces of Chile’s National Stadium in 1973
Chile’s neighbor Argentina also had a ruthless military dictatorship in the 1970s that was keen to use soccer to maintain its power. Although no evidence exists that stadiums themselves were used as torture centers like in Chile, the violence in that country could not be hidden when it hosted the 1978 World Cup. The military junta’s policy of “disappearing” its political enemies was known around the world, leading Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff to boycott the tournament. Those players who made the trip to South America may have tried to shield their eyes from the brutal policies of the Argentine rulers, but they were closer than they may have realized to sites of torture in the country.
[N]ear the World Cup stadium there were hidden concentration camps — they were so close that the fans’ shouts of celebration when the Argentine national team scored a goal could drown out the screams of the tortured people.
Europe
The break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s lead to a period of brutal violence, as people in the Balkans fought to establish the borders and identities of their newly independent republics. Soccer played a part in sparking the conflict and soccer stadiums often were the sites of violence.
As Franklin Foer documents in his his book How Soccer Explains the World, “a match between Red Star and Dinamo “was the first time in fifty years that Yugoslvia had seen its ethnic groups openly battle one another.” A brawl exploded between fans of the Serbian team (Red Star) and Croatian team (Dinamo), which spilled onto the field itself. As Serbian police beat a Dinamo fan, Zvonomir Boban made himself into a hero of the Croatian people by directly a flying kick at the cop, as seen in this video.
Of the many countries which attained independence during the 1990s Balkan Wars, the one which experienced the most violence was Bosnia. Massacres there have since become well known, especially that which occurred at Srebrenica. Of the nearly 9,000 Bosnian men murdered in that town, many were executed in a local soccer stadium. David Rohde, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who would later win a Pulitzer for his investigation, found that “At a soccer stadium in a nearby town, human feces, blood, and other evidence indicated large numbers of persons were confined, and perhaps shot.”Middle EastIt will probably surprise few that there has been violence in soccer stadiums in the Middle East. The region has both a passion for the game and governments far from averse to using violence.
Soccer in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was controlled his son Odai. The elder son of Saddam tortured many players based on their performances on the field. A 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article depicted some of the brutal practices Odai used to punish players who failed to win matches. Before the games began, the national team would watch videos of Odai preemptively threatening the team if they lost. The threats were very real as the post-game punishments demonstrate:
A missed penalty kick could bring a humiliating head-shaving at the Stadium of the People.
Sometimes players were forced to play “matches” in which they would kick concrete balls around the prison yard in 130-degree heat.
If a player made a number of poor passes, Odai would sometimes call him into the dressing room, where he would be punched or slapped once for every errant pass.
Another player, Sharar Haddar, has said that Odai dragged him and his teammates over concrete, pulling skin off their backs, then yanked them through a pit so that sand stuck to their raw skin and made them jump in a vat of sewage.
A device used by Odai Hussein to torture Iraqi soccer players
Israel’s 1982 incursion into Lebanon is remembered most for the massacres carried out against Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. At least 800 people were killed when the Israeli army, led by then defense minister Ariel Sharon, turned a blind eye as a Lebanese Christian militia rounded up Palestianians in these two camps and executed them. The murders occurred in many places, one of which was the local soccer stadium. The stadium was initially used as an interrogation center, but according to a report by Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk, “28 dead prisoners were discovered on the premises with their hands tied behind their backs.” Thomas Friedman would win a Pulitzer prize for his reporting on the massacre, and he details how soccer stadiums were the sites of torture and murder.
Conflict involving Israel, its Arab neighbors, and soccer fields arose again in April of 2006. The terrorist group Islamic Jihad fired rockets from the Gaza Strip which landed on the Israeli kibbutz of Karmiya. In response, the Jewish state identified the launching pad for these rockets and bombed it. Where did they bomb? A soccer field.
Other Examples
Numerous other examples exist of political violence perpetrated on soccer fields. Amnesty International has a series of reports condemning police forces for brutally cracking down on crowds in stadiums across the world (Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria for example). The 1968 Olympics in Mexico are remembered for the Tlatelolco Massacre, in which 200 to 300 student demonstrators were killed by army of that country. Reporter Susan Bilello described the lead-up to the event, which occurred near one of the world’s great stadiums, which would host the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals.
Ten days later, the lighting of the Olympic torch in Aztec Stadium peacefully inaugurated the first games ever hosted by a developing country. Outside the stadium, troops and tanks were poised beyond the view of television cameras.
The violence in the breakaway republic of Chechnya spilled over into the soccer stadium when Russian-installed president Akhmad Kadyrov was killed while at a stadium in the capital Grozny (only three weeks after Kadyrov’s death, the local team, Terek Grozny, won the Russian Cup). And Haiti’s bid for stability has been interrupted by periodic violence, which has included massacres in soccer stadiums (in July and September of 2006). Even a “Play for Peace” match organized to help stamp out violence in the Caribbean country descended into violence, with at least six people killed.
Soccer fields have been the site of political violence throughout history. Dictators, armies, independence fighters, rebels, terrorists, and even peace keepers have perpetrated unspeakable offenses on the pitch. Ugliness has stained the fields of the beautiful game far too often.
“Soccer moms” are uniquely American. The term came about in the soccer culture of this country, rose to prominence by describing a desirable political demographic, and continues to have resonance today.
In 1995, when Susan Casey ran for office in Denver, her slogan was “A Soccer Mom for City Council.” Casey’s usage is generally acknowledged as the first political appropriation of the term , but it was in the summer of 1996 that it came to national prominence.
Describing then-First Lady, Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy wrote in Time Magazine, “Hillary is the soccer mom of the pair who went grocery shopping and to the baseball games and firmly hitched her wagon to her husband’s star” (they didn’t yet realize quite how firmly hitched that star was!).
The term soccer mom exploded and became the most desired voting bloc of the 1996 presidential campaign. Soccer moms were a desirable political demographic because they were seen as among the few undecided voters in that election.
But who exactly are these soccer moms? Writing in Slate magazine in 1996, Jacob Weisberg observed that,
The consensus seems to be that soccer moms are some subset of middle-class, white suburban women. They “care about their kids” (as opposed, presumably, to urban “rap moms” who do not), and they are incredibly busy.
The soccer mom’s emergence came about simultaneously with soccer’s rise in the US. Unlike most countries, in which soccer is played across all classes, soccer’s popularity in the 1970s and 80s was adopted by the middle class. Soccer was seen as friendlier than American football, more active than baseball, and had a certain European sophistication that led to its booming in many middle- and upper-middle class suburbs. In addition to the economic homogeneity, these suburbs were also mostly white. Soccer quickly became the rich white kids sport. Within these wealthy, white suburbs, soccer became uber-organized. In contrast to the pick-up games played across the world, soccer in the US was played in official practices and games. Organizations such as AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization), SAY (Soccer Association for Youth), and USSF (United States Soccer Federation) provided the umbrella under which parents organized the game at the grass roots level. Like a PTA on grass, parents organized their children’s teams. Mothers who did so were often dubbed “soccer moms.”
Though the term soccer mom really became part of mainstream discourse in the 1996 presidential campaign, references to it appear far earlier. Many newspaper articles in the 1980s talk about soccer moms.
In a 1985 column in the Providence Journal titled “Confessions of a Soccer Mom,” Stephanie McKenna described her struggles to balance all of the requirements of her busy life. She says:
I became a Soccer Mother.
Soccer Mother. The job spec isn’t great. You have to juggle schedules at a moment’s notice, drive forever, withstand the elements. You have to muzzle up, despite judgment calls that would throw Solomon for a loop. You learn to step over the wreckage at home that builds from chores left undone. And friends start writing instead of phoning because you’re hardly home.
By the mid-1990s, many people had neighbors like McKenna, or had become soccer moms themselves. When Susan Casey and Hillary Clinton were referred to as soccer moms, the term caught on because people knew the person it described.
Her fifteen minutes of political fame may be through, but the soccer mom continues to have her place in American society. Ask any American what a soccer mom is, and chances are good you’ll get a positive response. The soccer mom is uniquely American, a term born in the culture of American soccer, brought to prominence in American politics, and which continues to retain relevance to this day in American society.
“Money is not the decisive factor here, as I earn good money at Werder Bremen,” he said. “If Brazil ignores me for 2006, then I have to find another way to get there.”
Ailton and company convinced few, and most importantly failed to convince FIFA president Sepp Blatter. The Brazilian’s dream to play for Qatar was quashed when FIFA ruled that “a player must either have lived in a country for at least two years, or have a parent or grandparent who was born there.” Most considered this decision a victory for common sense. Allowing the Brazilians to become Qatari would have set a precedent in which money could entice players to switch nationalities, thus making national teams little different from their club counterparts.
If FIFA had not stood in their way, Ailton, Dede, and Leandro would have joined a large and prestigious group of players who have switched nationalities. In soccer history, players have repeatedly player for countries in which they were not born.
Italy was an early adopter of schemes to naturalize foreign players for its national team. Talented South American players who came to Italy to play for club teams were also enlisted for the Italian national team, despite having already represented their home countries. Stars of the early Italian national team like Omar Sivori and Jose Altafini had represented Argentina and Brazil respectively before turning out for the Azzurri.
Altafini (L) and Sivori (R)
Spain attempted to follow Italy’s lead in the 1950s. At this time, three of the biggest stars in world soccer were playing in Spain. With players the caliber of Ferenc Puskas (Hungary), Ladislav Kubala (Slovakia) and Alfredo Di Stefano (Argentina) in La Liga, why not give them Spanish passports? Surprisingly, FIFA said no, in the first instance of soccer’s governing body taking a stand against nationality switching. The decision then was a simple one: players could only appear for one national team in their careers.
This decision was sufficient for most cases of eligibility. In matters of eligibility for national teams, FIFA has tried to take as much of a hands-off approach as possible, leaving decisions largely up to countries themselves. FIFA’s regulations simply say that, “Any person holding the nationality of a country is eligible to play for the representative teams of the Association of that country.” Essentially, if a country gives a player citizenship, he or she is eligible.
Many players and countries have taken advantage of these lax regulations. One need not look far to find players born in a different country from the one whose national team they represent. Many attain their new citizenship after having played for a club team in another country for many years. Players who have done so include:
Eduardo Da Silva: born in Brazil, represents Croatia
Santos: born in Brazil, represents Tunisia
Roberto Colautti: born in Argentina, represents Israel
Alex: born in Brazil, represents Japan
Guillermo Franco: born in Argentina, represents Mexico
Deco: born in Brazil, represents Portugal
The naturalization of foreign players to make them eligible for a country’s national team is often controversial. Deco has been accepted as Portuguese because of his supreme talent; Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari’s attempts to do the same with his former teammate Derlei has been met with some resistance.
Such resistance often has undertones of colonialism. Some of the most controversial instances of nationality switching have occurred in the UK and Ireland. Mick McCarthy, Paul McGrath, John Aldrige, Tony Cascarino, and others are among a group of players born in England but who play for Ireland. When Roy Keane (b. 1971, Cork) blew up and walked out on his team before the 2002 World Cup, his parting shots at Yorkshire-born Mick McCarthy were unabashed.
“I didn’t rate you as a player,” Keane told him in front of the whole squad. “I don’t rate you as a manager and I don’t rate you as a person. You can stick the World Cup up your b*******.”
Mauro Camoranesi, who won the World Cup with the Italian team this past summer, is from Argentina and maintains pride in his home country. He doesn’t sing the Italian national anthem before games (he doesn’t know it) and he caused controversy when he said,
“I’m not a traitor, I still feel 100% Argentine and have done nothing to find myself in this situation. It’s only a football matter, nothing else.”
Camoranesi’s quote gets at the heart of the dilemma over nationality switching. On the one hand, it is a simple matter of each country’s laws that determine whether a player can play for its national team. But as any soccer fan knows, the game has far more emotional appeal than do law books. Who wears the shirt of a country’s national team matters to that country’s fans. Some may be willing to hold their nose and allow talented foreigners to become naturalized citizens, but don’t want to allow this.
When the three Brazilians attempted to play for Qatar, they were seen as the worst kind of nationality switchers. They may have denied that money was a factor in their decisions, but many doubted the seriousness of this claim. Clearly, paying for players to suit up for one’s national team is going too far. But what are the limits to which soccer fans are willing to go in order to see their country achieve success on the pitch? And in allowing some foreign-born players to suit up for them, do countries lose a sense of pride in their national teams? These questions have existed throughout soccer’s history and with globalization connecting the world’s people more and more, they are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
When I first came across Desmond Morris’s book The Soccer Tribe, I thought it was a joke. I was on the campus of Amherst College and popped in the library to see what kind of soccer books were on the shelves. There I found the book that has since become one of my favorite soccer titles of all times.
The Soccer Tribe is a coffee table sized book from the early 1980s. The biography of the author said he had earned a Ph.D. from Oxford and had carried out much important research on animal behavior (he may also be known to readers more worldly than I was at the time as the author of the classic The Naked Ape).
The book, in 320 pages and complete with full-color pictures, looks at everyone (players, coaches, referees, fans, bureaucrats, etc.) who has anything to with soccer. This so-called “Soccer Tribe” is studied with the type of precision usually reserved by anthropologists in their work on tribes in remote parts of the world. As I flipped through the pages for the first time, I couldn’t tell whether Morris had written a serious study or if his book was simply intended to amuse.
It turns out the book is quite serious (it would have been quite a lot of work to simply make a joke, I now realize). The Soccer Tribe is, in some ways, reminiscent of the satirical paper Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, in which anthropologist Horace Miner made typical American behavior (like teeth brushing) seem exotic. Like Miner, Morris employs tools that anthropologists typically use to study “real” tribes in other cultures in looking at those involved in soccer. The result is a book that is simultaneously brilliant in analysis, hilarious in making light of things we take for granted, and beautifully presented (fair warning: short shorts and mullets do make many, many appearances).
I now have The Soccer Tribe on my coffee table and love to show it off to both soccer fans and non-fans alike. It is, to be sure, not a typical coffee table book, but this uniqueness is one of the things I most value about it. Morris’s book is now, sadly, out of print so it will take some searching to find it. But trust me: it’s worth it.
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Looking back at Morris’s book recently made me think again about some of the funniest of soccer rituals. Having watched so much soccer in my life, I rarely stop to consider the uniqueness of many such rituals, as I am so accustomed to seeing them. It is only in looking at The Soccer Tribe or watching games with friends not familiar with soccer that I remember how unique they are.
The pre- and post-game rituals offer some of the most striking examples. The most interesting pre-game ritual I have seen develop in the past few years is the players walking out to the field with young children in tow. Every Premier League game has these “mascots,” to use the British terminology. The sight of cute little children accompanying sporting superstars to the pitch is something I have not seen in other sports. Perhaps the thought of how Allen Iverson would respond if this happened to him is enough to dissuade the NBA from trying something similar.
On behalf of Steven Gerrard and all overpaid superstars ever treated poorly by four year-olds, Thierry Henry gets revenge on a mascot before a game against Ajax.
In Argentina, four year-olds are clearly over the hill. Most games there involve players carrying out infants to the field. But watching this Argentine spin on the pre-game ritual, one can’t help wonder if this might be a bit too young. The deafening roar of the crowd, the confetti thrown toward them, and the thought that they might be dropped by a sweaty many with strange clothes on has brought several of these young children to tears. And quite why parents trust soccer players, who clearly have other things on their minds right before a game, to not drop their infants is beyond me.
Boca Juniors’ Martin Palmero is lead to the field by young children.
There are also several post-game rituals which are unique to soccer. Players in most sports will exchange some sort of handshake at the end of a match. Soccer players (in big games, at least) take it a step further in exchanging shirts. On occasions when a smaller team players a bigger opponent, less well-known players fight to be able to exchange their shirt with superstars.
The US’s Claudio Reyna and the Czech Republic’s Pavel Nedved exchange shirts at last summer’s World Cup.
Soccer players also have a post-game ritual that I find completely endearing: applauding their supporters. Even in this era of massive money in sports, it is refreshing that professional soccer players recognize their fans after nearly every game by clapping to them. The gesture may be symbolic, but it epitomizes the fact that soccer teams in Europe have historically been clubs to which all belong, not the franchises that reduce the connection between professional athletes in American and their fans.
Sunderland players applaud their fans.
The post-game ritual of applauding fans is given a Japanese spin in that East Asian country. Instead of simply applauding, players there bow to their fans. This has come as a shock to some foreigners who have played in the J-League, but bowing is, of course, prevalent in Japanese society.
When I lived in Japan, I often saw bowing in soccer games. The middle school I worked at had a team whose players would bow both before and after matches to show appreciation to their coaches, opposing players, and referees.
Japanese (American) football players bow before a game.
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If a new version of Desmond Morris’s book The Soccer Tribe were to be written, it could certainly include this Japanese and the above Argentine example of soccer rituals. The 20 years of globalization since it was published have brought increased connection among the peoples of the world. In this time, we have been shown the similarities and differences of the rituals of the soccer tribe.
In addition to my regular writing, I will be writing about the most interesting stories I find in my research on the culture of soccer. I hope they are of interest to you as well. And what better way to get a picture of Levar Burton (anybody else grow up with Reading Rainbow?) onto the blog?
When I first came across 
