Fanatics

Power, Identity and Fandom in Football

Adam Brown

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134677283
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Popular Culture in Art

Embracing studies of football fans across Europe, this book tackles questions of power, national and regional identities, and race and racism, highlighting the changing role of fans in the game. Combining new approaches to the study of fan culture with critical assessments of the commercialization of the game, this fascinating book offers a comprehensive and timely examination of the state of European football supporters culture as the game prepares itself for the next millennium.
The contributors, all leading figures in sports studies, consider:
* whether football remains the peoples game, or if it is now run entirely by and for club owners and directors who have overseen the flotation of clubs on the stock exchange, a new focus on merchandising and the escalation of players salaries
* the role of FIFA and UEFA in the struggle for control of world football
* manifestations of racism and extreme nationalism in football, from the English medias xenophobic coverage of Euro 96 to the demonisation of Eric Cantona
* media representations of national identity in football coverage in Germany, France and Spain * the interplay of national, religious and club identities among fans in England, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and Scandinavia
* the role of the law in regulating football
* the future for supporters at a time when watching the match is more likely to mean turning on the television than going to a football ground.

Part I
POWER IN FOOTBALL

The ‘people’s game’?

1
FIFA VERSUS UEFA IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CONTROL OF WORLD FOOTBALL

John Sugden, Alan Tomlinson and Paul Darby

Introduction: FIFA’s crisis

In 1997, FIFA President, João Havelange, estimated football’s annual global financial turnover to be in excess of US$250 billion—more than multinational corporations such as General Motors, and considerably more than the GNPs of the vast majority of FIFA’s 200-plus member nations (authors’ interview with Havelange, Cairo, 3 September 1997). As over the last quarter of a century the riches and the status rewards attending the governance of international football have increased, so too have struggles to control the world’s most popular game reached new heights. (The struggle at a more grassroots or local/national level will be considered in the next chapter.) The contest for the control of world football has been particularly keen between the incumbent FIFA administration and representatives of the most potent continental confederation, UEFA. In this chapter we explore the roots of this contest and review some of its more contemporary manifestations before placing this personal and institutional power struggle in a broader theoretical setting.

FIFA and UEFA in the 1950s and 1960s

After the Second World War, membership of FIFA began to expand to the extent that there was perceived to be a need for a degree of regionalisation and decentralisation of administrative functions. Jules Rimet, then FIFA President, was against the idea because it ran contrary to his notion of FIFA as a single ‘family’. However, his contemporaries in the European federations, who were concerned that they were being politically out-manoeuvred by the Latin Americans, were all for it. As early as 1952, José Crahay, the Belgian FA’s delegate, was warning his European colleagues of the threat posed by what he viewed as a growing Latin American cabal. His recollections of the FIFA Congress in Helsinki that year are worth quoting at some length:

One of the South American delegates had something general to say on each and every item on the agenda. We saw very clearly that each point had been carefully studied in advance and that the South American delegates had apparently been nominated to defend a certain standpoint which seldom corresponded with that of the FIFA Executive Committee (then dominated by Europeans). The FIFA General Secretary of the time, Kurt Gassmann, fought back as well as he could, and all the major issues were deferred until the next Congress. But when it came to voting the European Associations each went their own way with no preconceived policy: the result was that we came close to committing a number of errors which would have done irreparable damage. May it be emphasised that our aim never was, and never shall be, to override anyone else; Europe’s only aim was to defend its own interests.

(Crahay quoted in Rothenbühler 1979:76)

The mounting awareness, within the European associations, of the emerging threat to their privileged position within world football’s power structures, was the motivating factor behind UEFA’s formation. In terms of the organisation of national football associations, Europe had been particularly fragmented prior to the 1950s. There had always been small, insular regional groupings within Europe, such as the separate British, Scandinavian and former Eastern Bloc associations. In the 1950s when Europe began to take seriously the notion of association football as a world game, this was in many respects a response to a growing concern that the South American consortium of national associations, which had been formed as early as 1916, gave that continent a uniform and collective voice within FIFA. Billy Drennan, the former secretary of the IFA (Irish Football Association), was present at the 1954 meeting in Basle, Switzerland at which UEFA was formed. Worried about being outmanoeuvred, Europe’s ‘divided house’ was forced to reconsider its own position:

At the actual [FIFA] Congress, the South American Associations’ votes are in reality a ‘block vote’. With no similar group of Associations in Europe, the various [European] Associations, with no previous study of FIFA matters and agendas, has not been able to vote solidly in the best interests of European football…. In view of all this a definite effort has now been made to form a European group.

(IFA (1954) Council minutes 29 June)

Thus, the distribution of power in world football was the inspiration behind UEFA’s formation in 1954. The establishment of UEFA gave Europe a collective voice within the world governing body and eased the emergence of two Englishmen, Arthur Drewry and Stanley Rous, who held the reins of FIFA from 1956 until the mid-1970s. These related developments assured that Europe would have a leading say in the pace and direction of world soccer development in the immediate post-war period (Tomlinson 1994). In general terms, however, the patronising, Eurocentric and neo-imperialistic style which characterised FIFA’s relations with its constituents at this time became undermined by the successful spread of the game into the Third World.

In FIFA’s regional committee structure, countries which were otherwise politically invisible, discovered a political platform for focusing and asserting often newly acquired independence and national identities. However, in considering the reform of FIFA from the mid-1970s onwards, while there was a degree of ‘push’ from these new national and regional governing bodies, in equal measure there was the ‘pull’ of those with vested interests in diminishing European influence and it was a combination of both forces which was to lead to the election of the first non-European President of FIFA in 1974.

The Third World struggle for global equity and FIFA in the 1970s

One of FIFA’s long-standing objectives has been to develop soccer worldwide and this has had important, if unintended, political consequences. The more successful this policy became the more pressure the organisation felt to adopt more and more national associations into the ‘FIFA family’. However, FIFA’s electoral franchise operated on the principle of one nation one vote, and this meant that, irrespective of their soccer tradition and playing ability, as each new member was admitted the Third World’s power base grew. Alarm bells began to ring in the established football nations, particularly in Europe. Thus spoke the UEFA President, Artemio Franchi:

With ever more states gaining their independence, and with existing countries splitting up into separate states—processes which are to be observed above all in the so called third world—the number of national football associations inevitably continues to grow. And there is nothing to stop these emerging football countries from joining the enlarged FIFA family. This is the uncomfortable truth.

(Franchi (1979) Official Bulletin of UEFA 87 (June): 21)

The emergence of the Third World as an effective political force within FIFA began to drive a wedge between UEFA and South American soccer. At the 1970 FIFA Congress in Mexico the new member nations of Africa and Asia and the South Americans voted together, resulting in Europe losing its majority representation on the World Cup and Olympic Tournament committees (FIFA (1970) Congress minutes). UEFA officials were outraged and the association called its members together for an extraordinary congress in Monte Carlo in June 1971. Louis Wouters, the Belgian delegate, voiced the concerns of all:

It is not the competence of the European representatives in the FIFA Executive which is at stake but rather the future of Europe in world football…at the FIFA Congress in Mexico, political questions were given precedence over questions of sport and a clearly anti-European attitude had been exhibited there.

(UEFA minutes (1971) IV Extraordinary Congress, Monte Carlo, June)

UEFA was particularly worried that its diminished influence on FIFA’s most important committees would adversely affect its members’ chances of hosting and qualifying for future World Cup Finals. Gustav Wiederkehr, the President of UEFA at that time, thought that the situation was a critical one: ‘The reduction of the European influence within the competent Committees, which was recently decided by the President of FIFA and approved by its Executive Committee, is…not acceptable’ (Official Bulletin of UEFA (1971) 55 (June): 814). Although the UEFA President ensured that the views of European nations on these matters would continue to be considered by the world governing body, the Europeans’ exasperation with FIFA increased, caused in no small measure by the fact that they felt Europe was generating an increasing amount of FIFA’s wealth while at the same time losing political control. By 1975 Wiederkehr’s successor as UEFA President, Artemio Franchi, was making the European case in strong and unambiguous terms:

UEFA represents within FIFA 74.61% of all affiliated clubs, 68.03% of the teams taking part in international competitions, 68.10% of the players and 85.27% of the referees. On the other hand, Europe with its 34 member associations only represents 23.57% of the actual affiliation, and this percentage continuously goes down whenever new countries become independent and then join FIFA…. As shown by these figures, Europe still represents the core of world football as far as technical matters are concerned, whereas from the political viewpoint, our continent forms a small minority.

(Official Bulletin of UEFA (1975) 71 (June): 18)

Nevertheless, as these tensions stirred and recurred throughout the first two decades of UEFA’s existence, so long as the Englishman, Rous, remained as President of FIFA, Europe felt that its interests would be protected. At the Monte Carlo UEFA meeting, Wiederkehr had seen trouble coming when he said that he ‘feared a further blow for Europe when Sir Stanley Rous would one day withdraw from the Presidency’ (UEFA minutes (1971) IV Extraordinary Congress, Monte Carlo, June). The fact that within three years of the Monte Carlo meeting, Rous had not withdrawn but had been forced out of office—through a power-play led by Brazilian, João Havelange, and involving the political muscle of the under-developed world—spelled even more trouble for UEFA. Havelange’s meteoric rise has to be understood in the context of broader First World—Third World political and economic tensions.

Round one: Rous versus Havelange

An understanding of the events surrounding the 1974 FIFA congress in Frankfurt and the election of Havelange as the organisation’s supremo is critical to any interpretation of FIFA today. Havelange, a former double Olympian (swimming and water polo) for Brazil, and said to be an independently wealthy businessman, recognised in the Third World’s problems with FIFA an opportunity for him to gain control of that organisation. Rous, who was of the old school and had a naïve view of the relationship between sport and politics, was a relatively easy target for Havelange, who, much to the chagrin of Europe, set about campaigning vigorously for support among FIFA delegates world-wide. He visited a total of eighty-six member countries, most of which had never participated in a World Cup Final and as things stood, were never likely to. Under such circumstances, Havelange had little trouble galvanising support for his bid for power. The journalist Malcolm Brodie covered the 1974 FIFA congress at which Havelange challenged Rous for the Presidency:

At that time, a lot of people in world football, Europe included, felt that Sir Stanley Rous was much too autocratic and too dictatorial… the South American nations and a lot of the African and Asian nations were called in by Havelange to defeat Stanley Rous.

(Brodie, M. (1995) interview with author, March)

In terms of global political relations the status of South America has always been ambivalent. It had been subjected to colonial exploitation, but had been mostly independent for the greater part of the twentieth century. Most South American countries had achieved levels of economic development which set them apart from the Third World, but which did not put them on a par with North America and Europe. Furthermore, there has been a tradition of South America taking a lead in the global political and economic relations among ‘non-aligned’ nations. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Third World challenge to FIFA was championed by a Latin American.

Patrick Nally, was closely involved with the business activities of FIFA at this time and took a corresponding interest in the organisation’s political affairs:

It was such a radical change to suddenly have this dynamic, glamorous South American character, brimming with bonhomie, travelling the world with his wife, meeting people, pressing the flesh, bringing over the Brazilian team, travelling with the likes of Pelé. It was Brazilian carnival time. Havelange had spent a fortune going around the world with the Brazilian team and had canvassed every single member of FIFA. It was unheard of. No sports president had ever gone round the world glad handing and campaigning.

(Nally, quoted in Simson and Jennings 1992:39–40)

Havelange’s platform was unashamedly based on increasing opportunities for the Third World. He pledged to increase World Cup Final places from 16 to 24 and promised to establish an International Academy committed to the development of soccer in the Third World; proposed an international Youth Championship to be hosted regularly by developing nations; and committed himself to cash subsidies for the construction of stadia and facilities and for the provision of top-class coaching, as well as support for more club competitions throughout Africa and Asia (Tomlinson 1986, 1994). As Nally argues, it was clear from the outset what Havelange’s electoral strategy was:

Havelange had obviously made lots of promises to the Asians and the Africans. One of his devout statements was that he was going to spread the message of soccer, to take away the domination of Europe and parts of South America…. All the pandering to the Asians and Africans was because obviously they had lots of votes.

(Nally 1991)

While Havelange canvassed the world, a combination of circumstances conspired to undermine Rous’ position. To begin with there was his own political naïveté. It is an enduring source of amazement that so many leading sports administrators are able to claim that sport and politics are separate spheres when so much of their time is taken up with political manoeuvring and mediation. Rhetorically, Rous made his position clear by arguing that, ‘the tangles of world politics are best left to the United Nations, while FIFA concerns itself with world football and jealously guards its constitution’ (Rous 1978:171). In effect, as the following examples will illustrate, this view allowed him to claim apolitical status while at the same time buttressing the challenged political and cultural hegemony of the West in the cold war era.

As the 1974 congress approached, Rous found himself confronting three simultaneous political crises. China had left FIFA in 1958 because FIFA continued to recognise the Association from Chaing Kai-shek’s Taiwan. The communist Chinese were particularly offended by the fact that FIFA allowed Taiwan to operate under the name it used within the United Nations: National China. As the influence of communist China spread, particularly throughout Asia and Africa, in the early 1970s there was a growing lobby outside of Europe and South America, which held the view that not only should China be readmitted, but that Taiwan should be expelled. Rous argued that while it was perfectly acceptable to readmit China, this could not be done at the expense of Taiwan as this would be contrary to FIFA’s constitutional position which stated that, ‘so long as a country was internationally recognised to exist [i.e. was a member of the United Nations] and had a reputable national Association…FIFA’s rules required us to give recognition’ (ibid.: 168).

Rous realised that by taking such a stand he may have alienated potential voters from the Third World and the communist bloc, but still he chose to hide behind his cherished, philosophical belief in the separation of sport and politics. ‘It was made clear to me that some delegates would vote against me unless Taiwan was expelled, but I was not amenable to that sort of pressure’ (ibid.: 201).

His relations with the communists were further damaged through the position he adopted over the World Cup qualifying match between Chile and the Soviet Union, scheduled to be played on 21 November 1973 in the National Stadium in Chile’s capital, Santiago. At that time Chile was governed by a military junta headed by General Pinochet which had overthrown the democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende in the September of that year. This regime had brutally eliminated political opposition and there was considerable evidence to suggest that the National Stadium had been used as both an internment camp and as a venue for the torture and execution of left-wing dissidents (Amnesty International 1993). The Soviets argued that under these circumstances, the game should be played in a neutral country. Once more Rous invoked FIFA’s constitutional position in preservation of the status quo, and prepared to face the consequences through the ballot box:

The Russian attitude may well have repercussions outside Europe, since their political muscle extends wide. And while a sitting President has certain advantages there were several ‘political’ issues militating against me, because I was not prepared to connive at FIFA ignoring its own statutes.

(Rous 1978:201)

Perhaps Rous’ gravest mistake, however, was that, in concentrating on these political controversies in the East, he took his eye off the ball in Africa where Havelange was concentrating most of his pre-election efforts. The details of Havelange’s Africa campaign and Rous’ poor response to it are detailed elsewhere (Sugden and Tomlinson 1997). To summarise, Havelange rea...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Power in Football
• Part II Racism in Football
• Part III Football North to South
• Part IV Football in Britain—The ‘National’ Sport?
• Part V Football Boundaries