The Global Sociology Blog

Ok, one last post on the sociological aspects of football as the end of the World Cup nears.

First, much has been made of Americans’ lack of interest in football. Of course, there is the idiotic conservative argument that football is boring, not enough goals are scored (Americans enjoy quantity over quality, as usual, in food as well as football), never mind that the argument can be made that baseball is worse in that department, especially since there is no time limit. Or the American exceptionalism argument: if the world loves it, then, Americans cannot possibly do so as well!

In the LA Times, Ariel Dorfman (website) invokes the cultural field (in Bourdieu’s sense) argument, and that field is already crowded in the context of the social organization of sports through the education and college and university systems funneling players in the professional leagues:

“The predominance and head start of those more “American” games has not allowed soccer the space to develop at the collegiate and professional level and, perhaps most crucially, is not massively dreamed of as a path to grandeur by athletically endowed children mired in poverty. American kids have the same talent as youngsters in the favelas of Rio or the shantytowns of Nigeria, but it is siphoned off at an early age in search of more lucrative venues.”

Also, the fact that what are now considered American sports are actually variations on older ones:

“Americans have perennially seen themselves as pioneers, constantly reinventing themselves. Their most popular sports have appropriated traditional games and drastically modified the rules: Cricket became baseball, rugby turned into American football, and even basketball can be considered a variation on indigenous native American activities. But how do you take the “foreign” game of soccer and make it into something other than … well, soccer?”

Football does not fit in the media, ad-saturated culture and therefore children are not socialized into watching much football on television:

“Nor do children in the United States get to watch much soccer on television. This last point may be an insoluble problem for the sport’s advancement because it concerns the structure of the game itself. Major U.S. sports events have timeouts and interludes during which ads can be breathlessly crammed in, but one of the essential attractions of soccer is the dramatic relentlessness of the contest once it has begun. You literally cannot stop the clock. This is such a sacred rule of the game that its organizers have resisted the clamor to allow video replays, even when the referee has made a flagrantly erroneous call that can cost a team victory.”

Dorfman is optimistic though, for two reasons:

• Demographics: the US is receiving a lot of immigrants from football-loving countries, especially Central and South America.
• Geopolitical: we might be witnessing the end of American exceptionalism and supremacy, economically, politically and militarily.

That might open some space for a more football-friendly integration in the American culture.

Taking a different approach, David Winner examines how the changes in Dutch football reflect political changes in the Netherlands as the country gets ready for the final.

This used to be Dutch football:

“For decades, the reputation of the country as a bastion of free thinking, creativity and fun was buttressed by its uniquely attractive football culture. The totaalvoetballers carved out a niche by playing daring, creative, attacking football – and usually lost their most important matches in tragic circumstances. Their tendency to self-destruction in major tournaments made the Dutch many people’s favourite second team. Holland was the Lord Byron or Marilyn Monroe of international football.

(…)

Dutch football as we have known it was born in Amsterdam in the late 1960s as the city was being transformed by social and cultural revolution. Playful Provos and anarchists were subverting the old, grey, sober Netherlands and turning the city into a centre of world hippiedom. Meanwhile, iconoclastic Ajax coach Rinus Michels and teenage genius Cruyff were laying down the blueprint for a revolution in football.”

This is now:

“Fortuyn represented a darker side to Dutch liberalism. His eponymous party, the Pim Fortuyn List, exploited growing anxiety over immigration and identified a new enemy for the Dutch open society: Islam. When Fortuyn was assassinated in 2002 – by a Dutchman who claimed he was acting to protect Muslims from being “scapegoated” – it was clear that Dutch society and politics was developing a sharper edge. The famous coffee shops, where cannabis could be smoked freely, have come under scrutiny as politicians attempt to balance an easygoing approach with the demands of a vocal anti-drugs lobby. Amid concern at the level of criminal activity in Amsterdam’s red-light district, half of the city’s “prostitution windows” were closed in 2007.

According to Paul Scheffer, one of the country’s most perceptive cultural and political commentators, what we are seeing from the men in orange in South Africa reflects a more cautious and fearful nation. “We are more insecure, conservative. You could also call it realism. We have become aware of our vulnerability, so have a more sober idea of what we can do, what we can be. The more free-floating, high-minded idea of what we represent in the world has got lost a bit in the last 10 years. Of course you lose something that was nice, but you lose also something that was irritating – I never liked all that moralism.

“You have something now that is less interesting because it’s less distinctive. We focus on the result and don’t worry if it’s nice to watch. We’ve become more average, and the paradox is that perhaps being average will win us the World Cup.”

Is there anything that conservatism does not ruin?

For the record, I am not rooting for Spain nor the Netherlands. I just want an exciting final.