This paper seeks to make use of Appadurai's characterization of the contemporary global condition in terms of the disjunctive flows of a series of related'social scapes'. This categorization is applied to an analysis of key recent developments within elite professional football, together taken to represent the'Europeanizaton' of the'soccerscape'. The paper then goes on to consider possible meanings and significance of such developments, in particular whether it is possible to argue that they may contribute, or have the potential to contribute to the emergence of a sense of 'Europeanness' among followers of football, especially the young.
Nowhere more clearly than on the football field are the
diversity and unity of Europe asserted. Wherever you
might travel in the continent … one of the few sights you will find everywhere is a football pitch.
(Connolly 2000: 12)
For the purposes of this paper's analysis of contemporary elite football, the most useful way to think about globalization and its effects is provided by Arjun Appadurai (1990). He differs from more conventional approaches to globalization in at least two significant respects. First, Appadurai does not define the globalized world in terms of a core and its associated (and often exploited) semi periphery and periphery, but rather develops his analysis in terms of five global ‘-scapes’. The suffix ‘-scape’, combined with the prefixes of ‘ethno’, ‘finance’, ‘techno’, ‘media’ and ‘ideo’ offers a framework within which to examine the complex, overlapping and disjunctive flows of the global cultural economy. Second, Appadurai (1996: 31, in Franklin et al. 2000: 223) stresses the increasing significance of imagination, which is taken to be ‘central to all forms of agency, is itself a social fact, and is the key component of the new global order’. Thus many people ‘live in “imagined worlds”, and not just in imagined communities … ’ (Appadurai 1990: 222). Imagination and the social scapes combine to offer themselves as the building blocks of a disjunctive and fluid present which may have as much to do with people's imaginings and dreams, as it has with conventional notions of geography, ethnicity, class or nation (Beck 2000, in Beynon and Dunkerley 2000).
Taking and adapting Appadurai's conception of the social ‘-scape’, it seems increasingly useful to conceive the transnational circulation of key elements of contemporary football – players, agents and coaches; finance, information and mediatized images; fans and officials, as constituting what may be called the ‘soccerscape’ of the contemporary game (Giulianotti 1999). Consideration will now be given to the suggestion that developments in the various dimensions of the elite ‘soccerscape’ within Western, and, increasingly Central and Eastern Europe represent processes of its ‘Europeanization’.
The Europeanization of the Contemporary ‘Soccerscape’
The ‘financescape’ of elite football, especially at club level, has undergone a revolution, both in scale and nature during the past decade, as indicated by the growth of club turnover in major Western European football leagues. For example, average turnover of German Bundesliga clubs has risen by a factor of almost five times, from approximately 20 million DM in season 1989–1990, to 95 million DM in 2000–2001 (Kicker Sport-Magazin no 62/31 30.07.2001.20) Over the period from 1990 to December 2002 the price level in Germany rose by approximately 23.2 per cent. This indicates a substantial real rise in the value of average club turnover during this period (OECD 1996, 2004). A similar picture presents itself in England, where the aggregate real turnover of Premier League clubs describes a sharply upward trajectory (see Table 1).
. | Season . | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
. | Actual . | Projected . | ||||||||
1993–4 | 1994–5 | 1995–6 | 1996–7 | 1997–8 | 1998–9 | 1999–00 | 2000–1 | 2001–2 | 2002–3 | |
Agg turnover (£m) | 241 | 323 | 346 | 464 | 582 | 670 | 772 | 970 | 1300 | 1500 |
. | Season . | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
. | Actual . | Projected . | ||||||||
1993–4 | 1994–5 | 1995–6 | 1996–7 | 1997–8 | 1998–9 | 1999–00 | 2000–1 | 2001–2 | 2002–3 | |
Agg turnover (£m) | 241 | 323 | 346 | 464 | 582 | 670 | 772 | 970 | 1300 | 1500 |
(Adapted from Chart 1.1 Boon G and Jones D 2001.6)
(Cumulative Percentage Change in Consumer price Index UK 1993–2003 was 30.6 per cent. Source: CSO at http://www.cso.ie/principalstats/pristat3rate.html)
The significance of Europe to such development is emphasized by Boon (The Guardian 28-04-01), in his assertion that the financial benefit of participation in the major European club football competition – the UEFA Champions’ League – has become ‘the main course, not the dessert it once was’. Indeed, it has been contended that ‘The UEFA Champions’ League is the ‘de facto’ sixth ‘big’ European league’, whose broadcast income to be distributed to clubs would place it at third among the ‘Big Five’ leagues, with an average match attendance in 2001–2002 of 34,361 which is higher than any domestic league (Deloitte and Touche 2003 at http://www.deloitte.com).
A further indication of the significance to elite clubs of the revenue streams deriving from European competition is given by an examination of the financial distribution of TV and sponsorship revenue for the group stages onwards of the UEFA Champions’ league competition of 2003–2004. A total of 631 million CHF was distributed to participating clubs according to the following tariff and their progress in the competition (see Table 2).
Participation in Champions’ League | 2.5m CHF |
Match Fees (Group Matches per match) | 0.5 m CHF |
Bonus per group match win | 0.5m CHF |
Bonus per group match draw | 0.25m CHF |
Bonus for reaching knock out stage | 2.5m CHF |
Bonus for reaching Quarter Final stage | 3.0m CHF |
Bonus for reaching Semi Final stage | 4.0m CHF |
Bonus for runner up | 6.0m CHF |
Bonus for competition winner | 10.0m CHF |
(Uefa.com/uefa/news/) |
Participation in Champions’ League | 2.5m CHF |
Match Fees (Group Matches per match) | 0.5 m CHF |
Bonus per group match win | 0.5m CHF |
Bonus per group match draw | 0.25m CHF |
Bonus for reaching knock out stage | 2.5m CHF |
Bonus for reaching Quarter Final stage | 3.0m CHF |
Bonus for reaching Semi Final stage | 4.0m CHF |
Bonus for runner up | 6.0m CHF |
Bonus for competition winner | 10.0m CHF |
(Uefa.com/uefa/news/) |
Clubs also received an additional amount (in some cases over 32 million CHF) as a share of the ‘Market Pool’ ‘ … distributed according to the proportional value of each TV market represented by the clubs taking part, and … split among the number of teams participating from a given association’ (Uefa.com/uefa/news/). UEFA estimated that the tournament winner FC Porto received 29.98 million CHF, while runner-up AS Monaco received 40.8 million CHF. Due to their higher revenue from the Market Pool the English clubs Arsenal FC, Manchester United FC and Chelsea FC also collected over 40 million CHF. The full distribution is provided in Table 3. It must also be remembered of course, that these revenues for the clubs do not include their share of gate monies. Not surprisingly, European competition and the financial flows that derive from it are increasingly factored into assessments of the performance and prospects of those elite clubs, which have become regular participants in the Champions’ League. Thus the five elite leagues of Europe (England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France plus the more peripheral Holland) have accounted for between 18 and 21 of the 32 places for teams in the first group stage of the competitions from 2002–03 to 2004–05. Moreover, UEFA noted that only three of the participants in the 2002–03 competition were doing so for the first time in what it calls the ‘UEFA Champions League – a circle of regulars’ (uefadirect 9.02.4). Similarly, the significance of European competition for the financescapes of what might be called ‘aspirant’ clubs should not be underestimated. When Hertha BSC Berlin was promoted to the Bundesliga, the club invested heavily in star players, with the result that ‘a regular place in the … lucrative Champions’ League was defined as “an economic necessity”’ (Anpfiff – Die Fussball-Illustrierte 6.2001.36). Indeed the consequences of failure to reach the lucrative group stages of the Champions’ League confronts a number of elite clubs each year. For example in 2003–04, Newcastle United ‘may have lost out on up to £15m … [whereas Liverpool's failure] … was estimated to have cost the Merseyside club £20m’ (28/08/2003 at http://news.bbc.co.uk). Such amounts are not inconsiderable, when it is recognized that, according to the Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance of 2004, average revenue for clubs in the English Premier league in 2002–03 was estimated at £64 million (http://www.deloitte.com).
TEAMS . | All amounts in CHF . | FC Porto Winner . | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
. | Group matches . | Final round . | Total . | ||||||
. | Starting Fee . | Match Fee . | Performance Bonus . | Market- Pool . | 1st Knock-out round . | Quarter Finals . | Semi-finals . | Final . | CHF . |
Group A | |||||||||
Celtic FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 4,712,000 | 11,462,000 | ||||
Olympique Lyonnais | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 17,008,00 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 29,758,000 | ||
RSC Anderlecht | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 1,670,000 | 8,420,000 | ||||
FC Bayern München | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 19,727,000 | 2,500,000 | 29,477,000 | |||
Group B | |||||||||
Internazionale | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 10,200,000 | 17,200,000 | ||||
FC Dynamo Kyiv | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 560,000 | 7,310,000 | ||||
FC Lokomotiv Moskva | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,783,000 | 2,500,000 | 11,283,000 | |||
Arsenal FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 30,508,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 43,258,000 | ||
Group C | |||||||||
AS Monaco | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 17,081,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 6,000,000 | 40,081,000 |
AEK Athens | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 500,000 | 2,328,000 | 8,328,000 | ||||
RC Deportivo La Coruna | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 11,425,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 28,175,000 | |
PSV Eindhoven | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 7,059,000 | 14,329,000 | ||||
Group D | |||||||||
Olympiacos | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 3,420,000 | 9,670,000 | ||||
Juventus FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,250,000 | 12,845,000 | 2,500,000 | 23,095,000 | |||
Galatasarray | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 2,662,000 | 9,412,000 | ||||
Real Sociedad de Fùtbol | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 12,523,000 | 2,500,000 | 22,273,000 | |||
Group E | |||||||||
Panahtinaikos | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 2,983,000 | 9,233,000 | ||||
Rangers FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 5,208,000 | 11,458,000 | ||||
VfB Stuuttgart | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 17,848,000 | 2,500,000 | 27,848,000 | |||
Manchester United FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,500,000 | 31,996,000 | 2,500,000 | 42,496,000 | |||
Group F | |||||||||
FC Porto | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 2,980,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 29,980,000 |
Real Madrid | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,500,000 | 16,267,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 29,767,000 | ||
Olympique de Marseille | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 8,707,000 | 14,957,000 | ||||
FK Partizan | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 241,000 | 6,464,000 | ||||
Group G | |||||||||
S S Lazio | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 7,933,000 | 14,433,000 | ||||
AC Spartan Praha | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 153,000 | 2,500,000 | 9,653,000 | |||
Chelsea FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,250,000 | 26,788,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 44,038,000 | |
Besiktas JK | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 2,942,000 | 9,692,000 | ||||
Group H | |||||||||
RC Celta de Vigo | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 8,843,000 | 2,500,000 | 18,593,000 | |||
AC Milan | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 14,365,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 27,106,000 | ||
AFC Ajax | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 6,405,000 | 12,905,000 | ||||
Club Brugge | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,846,000 | 8,846,000 | ||||
TOTAL | 80,000,000 | 96,000,000 | 48,000,000 | 311,000,000 | 40,000,000 | 24,000,000 | 16,000,000 | 16,000,000 | 631,000,000 |
TEAMS . | All amounts in CHF . | FC Porto Winner . | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
. | Group matches . | Final round . | Total . | ||||||
. | Starting Fee . | Match Fee . | Performance Bonus . | Market- Pool . | 1st Knock-out round . | Quarter Finals . | Semi-finals . | Final . | CHF . |
Group A | |||||||||
Celtic FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 4,712,000 | 11,462,000 | ||||
Olympique Lyonnais | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 17,008,00 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 29,758,000 | ||
RSC Anderlecht | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 1,670,000 | 8,420,000 | ||||
FC Bayern München | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 19,727,000 | 2,500,000 | 29,477,000 | |||
Group B | |||||||||
Internazionale | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 10,200,000 | 17,200,000 | ||||
FC Dynamo Kyiv | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 560,000 | 7,310,000 | ||||
FC Lokomotiv Moskva | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,783,000 | 2,500,000 | 11,283,000 | |||
Arsenal FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 30,508,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 43,258,000 | ||
Group C | |||||||||
AS Monaco | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 17,081,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 6,000,000 | 40,081,000 |
AEK Athens | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 500,000 | 2,328,000 | 8,328,000 | ||||
RC Deportivo La Coruna | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 11,425,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 28,175,000 | |
PSV Eindhoven | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 7,059,000 | 14,329,000 | ||||
Group D | |||||||||
Olympiacos | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 3,420,000 | 9,670,000 | ||||
Juventus FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,250,000 | 12,845,000 | 2,500,000 | 23,095,000 | |||
Galatasarray | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 2,662,000 | 9,412,000 | ||||
Real Sociedad de Fùtbol | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 12,523,000 | 2,500,000 | 22,273,000 | |||
Group E | |||||||||
Panahtinaikos | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 2,983,000 | 9,233,000 | ||||
Rangers FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 5,208,000 | 11,458,000 | ||||
VfB Stuuttgart | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 17,848,000 | 2,500,000 | 27,848,000 | |||
Manchester United FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,500,000 | 31,996,000 | 2,500,000 | 42,496,000 | |||
Group F | |||||||||
FC Porto | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 2,980,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 29,980,000 |
Real Madrid | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,500,000 | 16,267,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 29,767,000 | ||
Olympique de Marseille | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 8,707,000 | 14,957,000 | ||||
FK Partizan | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 750,000 | 241,000 | 6,464,000 | ||||
Group G | |||||||||
S S Lazio | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 7,933,000 | 14,433,000 | ||||
AC Spartan Praha | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 153,000 | 2,500,000 | 9,653,000 | |||
Chelsea FC | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,250,000 | 26,788,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 44,038,000 | |
Besiktas JK | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,250,000 | 2,942,000 | 9,692,000 | ||||
Group H | |||||||||
RC Celta de Vigo | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 8,843,000 | 2,500,000 | 18,593,000 | |||
AC Milan | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,750,000 | 14,365,000 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 27,106,000 | ||
AFC Ajax | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 6,405,000 | 12,905,000 | ||||
Club Brugge | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,846,000 | 8,846,000 | ||||
TOTAL | 80,000,000 | 96,000,000 | 48,000,000 | 311,000,000 | 40,000,000 | 24,000,000 | 16,000,000 | 16,000,000 | 631,000,000 |
(Adapted from Uefa.com.uefa/news)
A further indication of the Europeanization of the financescape of elite football is the formation of ‘ G14: the leading european football clubs association ‘. Aiming to mirror the G8 super economies, this group of 18 elite European clubs has its own organizational structure and mission (http://www.g14.com). The ultimate ambition of this group may well be to create a European Super League of clubs with a large supporter base and established money making credentials (McGill 2001). Such clubs may be transforming themselves into ‘trans-national corporations’, which operate across and disregard national boundaries, a development which may threaten their historic role as representations of essentially local identity (Finn and Giulianotti 2000). Whether or not such a European League ever materializes, the creation of G14 clearly shows how ‘the traditional structures of football, based on nation-state boundaries, are fraying at the edges’ (Radnedge 2001: 16). The ‘financescapes’ of the major clubs in the less significant national leagues of Europe are also becoming increasingly Europeanized. As Cassy (The Guardian 28-04-01) insists ‘In smaller leagues like Holland, Scotland, Portugal and Belgium the impact of European competition is even more stark. For example, at Rosenborg in Norway domestic competition has become a financial afterthought with the Champions’ League making up more than 50 per cent of annual income’. Indeed, in 2003, of those six clubs with the record number of years participation in that competition (eight out of 11 possibilities) only two, Barcelona and Manchester United, are from the ‘Big Five’ European Leagues. This rising financial significance of European as compared to domestic competition drove a failed attempt by major clubs in the smaller leagues to unify to form an ‘Atlantic League’, which would have been designed to act as the ‘6th force’ in the market for televised football in Europe.
The Europeanization of football's ‘financescape’ is closely connected to that of its ‘mediascape’. As McGill (2001: 87) has noted ‘Football may be a game about a round ball, but for today's game the square box in the corner of the living room is almost as important’. The connection is emphasized by Boon, who notes (in McGill 2001: 92) that ‘It is the involvement of the media and TV deals that are now driving football's funding’. The most recent report indicates that ‘Broadcast income remained the most important revenue source for all ‘Big Five’ leagues in 2002/03’ (http://www.deloitte.com). This is broadly confirmed by the latest ‘Football Rich List data in Table 4, despite the fact that ‘Each of the ‘Big Five’ leagues has experienced the regulator's influence on their media rights selling strategies in recent seasons’ (http://www.deloitte.com).
The ‘mediascapes’ of contemporary football have clearly developed over the last decade to become much more complex, multi-dimensional and significant. One relevant consequence identified by Appadurai (1990): 223–4) is that they are able to provide
large and complex repertoires of images, narratives and ‘ethnoscapes’ to viewers throughout the world … they offer to those who experience and transform them … a series of elements (such as characters, plots and textual forms) out of which scripts can be formed of imagined lives, their own as well as those of others living in other places.
It's not just games you're watching. It's soap operas, complete with story lines and plots and plot twists. And good guys and villains, heroes and underdogs. And all this gets scripted into cliffhanger morality plays … And you get all caught up in this until you begin to believe it really matters.
The ‘ethnoscape’ of contemporary football will include groups such as players, coaches, agents, managers, fans, media professionals, referees and other officials. As far as elite players are concerned, increasing importance is being attached (especially in the post-Bosman period) to playing for a club with at least realistic hope of qualification for European competition. This has contributed to the simultaneous Europeanization and globalization of football's labor market. The statistics for 2002–3 show that out of 76 clubs in the top divisions of England, Spain, Germany and Italy only Athletic Bilbao (a special case as the football club which acts as a key focus of Basque cultural identity) and Recreativo (unexpectedly promoted and likely to be relegated immediately) had an all domestic national squad. All other clubs had in their squads at least one player of non-domestic European nationality or non-European nationality and only five clubs did not have examples of both (World Soccer September 2002). While concerns have been expressed regarding the possibly damaging effects both on young domestic players and the prospects of the national team of a ‘flood’ of foreign players, it is also interesting to note that many of the most prominent stars of Europe's leagues are now non-domestic nationals. One thinks of players such as Davids and Nedved in Italy; Lizarazu and Rosicky in Germany; Henry, Drogba and Van Nistelrooy in England and Beckham and Zidane in Spain. Such developments, in conjunction with the increasingly Europeanized ‘mediascape’ of elite football have had a considerable effect on fans. European football is becoming part of that which is familiar to the football fan – part of her/his general worldview (Winner 2001). This familiarity of the ‘European’ has developed to such an extent that fans routinely attend games in other countries. As Cresswell and Evans note (1998: Introduction):
… cheaper travel has made it easier for supporters to follow their team abroad. Why sit in hours of motorway traffic, driving from one end of England to the other, when you could book flight to Milan or a train to Paris to catch a game?
The young [Lazio] fans here see the [UEFA] Champions’ League as the main thing. The older ones, they say you must win lo scudetto [the Italian Football Championship]. The really old ones say it doesn't matter, just beat Roma.
The Meanings and Significance of Europeanized Football: Initial Thoughts
There is a clear case to be made that the recent development of professional football may be understood in terms of football entrepreneurs seeking to create an ever-expanding domestic and European market for their product (Miller et al.2001). The driving force behind flows of people, technology, finance and financial information and ideologies/worldviews may be the ongoing and relentless development of capitalism itself towards a truly World System (Wallerstein 1974). Thus, it is possible to analyze the developing soccerscape in terms of a distinction between core, semi-peripheral and peripheral football economies and of their exploitative relationships. For example, the migration of elite Eastern European players to the ‘core’ leagues of Western Europe is highlighted as one key labor flow (Maguire 1999). European leagues, which are poorer and may thus be regarded as among the ‘semi-peripheral’ leagues, e.g., Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Scotland suffer a large proportion of their stars playing in a richer and more ‘core’ foreign league (Eliasson 2001). Increasingly it is the African and some Asian leagues, which may be regarded as being at the ‘periphery’ of the football economy. However, the contribution, which such players may make both to the improvement in standing of their national sides and to the development of sport domestically is potentially very significant.
In similar vein, there is a considerable literature, which analyses the ‘new commercialism’ of football, arguing that in the major leagues, football has simply sold its historic soul as the ‘people's game’. It has unreservedly embraced the key tenets of liberal market economics and is content to maximize returns from the commodified and mediatized product that it has become (Conn 1997; Lee 1998; Sugden and Tomlinson 1999; Williams 1999; Greenfield and Osborn 2001). Such critical analysis of the ‘new commercialism’ of football is not restricted to England. For example, Sport-Bild (07-02-01) has carried the front page headline ‘Fans’ Revolt’, a reference to organized fan group protests against the rearrangement of fixtures to suit the TV schedules, multi-million DM transfer fees and salary levels at a time of general economic austerity and the capricious behavior of clubs, which showed less concern for the fans than for big business interests. Similarly L'Elefant Blau (2000: 136), the organization of fans of Barcelona, is increasingly concerned that ‘The club's traditions of ownership by its members are increasingly under threat from those seeking to exploit global economic forces’. Indeed the likely exposure of elite football to the whims of the market's moods has become increasingly evident over recent years. In particular, the attractiveness of elite football to television broadcasting companies, who have been responsible for an outlandish and unsustainable price escalation in fees payable for transmission rights, appears now to be on the wane. As a consequence, many football clubs which have budgeted to pay players huge salaries, based on anticipated revenues from TV rights deals, are encountering financial difficulties. In England, for example, the collapse of the ITV Digital television company left the 72 clubs of the oldest Football League in the world with a shortfall of £131 million relative to their expectations. As a consequence a record number of seventeen Football League clubs entered insolvency proceedings during 2002 and 2003 and countless professional footballers languished without a playing contract as clubs struggled desperately to reduce costs (http://www.deloitte.com). In Italy, the start of the Serie A and B 2002–03 season was delayed by two weeks as a result of conflict between the Lega Calcio (League authorities) and the state owned television broadcaster RAI. In Germany the financial difficulties of KirchMedia, the concern which owned the rights to broadcast live Bundesliga matches has, according to Rolf Rüssmann, Manager of FC Nürnberg, produced ‘a catastrophe’. Der Club had to adjust both its budget downwards by 5.5 million Euros and its squad building strategy, as there was ‘no market’ to sell players to raise the income to buy (kicker online 01-07-02). The same picture presented itself in more semi-peripheral football economies such as Holland and Greece. Clearly, then, there is something in the argument that football and its followers are greatly at the mercy of such broader global economic forces and flows. This, in combination with the active support of the ‘New Labour’ Government of Tony Blair, has contributed in Britain to increased supporter involvement in the running and ownership of clubs especially below Premiership level (Martin 2003).
However, such an analysis may be only partial and may run the risk of assuming an economic determinism with regard to the significance of current developments within football. Such an analysis could run the risk of seeing those involved in football, especially the fans, as ‘structural dopes’, unreflective and incapable of agency save only as a reactive, and ultimately romantically failing resistance to the economic juggernaut. An alternative, complementary rather than rival view would see the notion of globalization not in purely economic terms, but would emphasise the significance of cultural flows. The great value of Appadurai's conception of the social ‘-scape’ is its ability to illustrate how contemporary economic and cultural flows cut across the increasingly porous borders of nation states. His perspective on globalization suggests that the transnational flow of such ‘-scapes’ can serve to create new imaginative possibilities for people, new ways of imagining different ways of life and social communities.
Of course, there is a considerable literature on the relationship between sport and senses of social and collective identity, especially national identity, which may readily be seen as a prime example of what Anderson (1991: 6) has called an ‘imagined community’. As Anderson (1991) and Hobsbawm (1990) argue both the modern nation state and sport, in its recognisable form of today as organized, codified and regulated, may be seen not only as products of modernity, but as in some ways related to one another. As Moorhouse (1996: 71) notes, ‘If nations are ‘imagined communities’ then celebrations, events and incidents are needed to feed imaginations, especially those of the vast majority’. Thus sociologists have focused on the significance of sports as varied as skiing (Sorlin 1996) and cricket (James 1963) to the development and maintenance of a sense of collective identity at the national level. However, it is probably true to say that the sport, about which most has been written in this regard, is football (e.g., Archetti 1996; Duke and Crolley 1996; MacClancy 1996; Mangan 1996; Coelho 1998). Giulianotti (1999): xi) notes this sport's unique status in his observation that ‘Though it may be increasingly passé to say as much, association football is undeniably the world's premier sport. No other form of popular culture engenders football's huge and participatory passion among its devotees’. Hobsbawm (1990: 143) has illustrated how this global sport may serve to concretise the concept of nationality, with his insight that ‘The imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven people’. This shared significance of nation and football has been emphasized by Coelho (1998: 160) in his argument that ‘If national identity is the most ‘developed’ identity of modernity, football is its most popular sport/spectacle’.
The present piece, while recognizing the arguments outlined above, does not wish to concern itself directly with issues of national identity. Rather it seeks to develop in one particular way the perhaps optimistic argument that those transnational flows, which constitute the ‘-scapes’ of the contemporary world, such as the ‘soccerscape’, create new imaginative possibilities for people. Thus, as Franklin et al. (2000: 97) note, developments in ‘mediascapes’ and ‘ethnoscapes’ ‘seem to impel (and sometimes compel) the work of the imagination’ in ways that may not easily be restricted to conventional local, national or regional spaces. However, if imagination becomes central to agency and crucial to the contemporary global order, Appadurai also draws attention to ways in which media technologies and the increasing migratory flows of people around the world create instabilities in the generation of self and the various dimensions of social identity. Such instability is not, however, defined in negative terms. Rather it is seen to reflect the democratized availability of media images, which serve as key resources to make possible the creation of new forms of social identity. As a consequence, imagination itself is democratized in the sense that ever greater numbers of people are now able to imagine what was previously unimaginable, to dream what was once undreamable. In particular, Appadurai argues that the combination of media and migration effects has the result that what is imaginable is no longer restricted to the essentially ‘modern’ nation state. Rather a range of ‘diasporic public spheres’ are open to be invented. Thus, the analysis of the contemporary world must involve the consideration of imagined communities, other than those occupying the limited space of nation. It could be that in contemporary society an individual's social identity may become what Therborn (1995) has called ‘contingent’, taking on what Hall et al. (1992) have called a ′hybrid′quality, both indicating its uncertain and multi-dimensional character. This ‘hybridity’ or ‘contingency’ may manifest itself in the simultaneous adoption of social and cultural identities, which shift, even overlap between region, nation and supranation. Therborn (1995: 233), in stressing the increased contingency of social identity, has directly suggested that a sense of Europeanness may become one element of the indeterminate number of social and cultural identities, which an individual may recognize. This paper will go on to contend that one such emergent ‘public sphere’ of identity may well be Europe and the sense of what Schlesinger (1994: 317) has called Europeanness.
The Europeanization of the ‘landscapes’ of contemporary elite football may, by offering a significant example of ‘people's ability to experience Europe directly’ (Leonard 1998: 21), contribute to the development of a ‘community of affect’ (Hebdige 1989) based on Europe. Arguably, it is here that the linkage between football's Europeanized ‘mediascape’ and ‘ethnoscape’ may have their greatest consequence, in that observers/fans may feel themselves to be part of something recognisably European. As Giulianotti and Armstrong (1997: 11–2) explain:
In this area, social relations, such as gatherings around football, need not be founded in any particular local scenario but may be constructed across time and space. In this way the participants pursue what Lyotard (84) would term the ‘promise of a community’ …
Conclusion
This paper has sought to demonstrate the usefulness of Appadurai's conception of social ‘-scapes’ to an understanding of the nature and possible consequences of developments in contemporary elite football. It recognizes that football, of course, may continue to be linked strongly to divisive conceptions of national identity and may encourage sentiments of nationalism or even xenophobia. Moreover, there is clearly something in the argument that football is simply an increasingly effective branch of capitalism, which generates and exploits a seemingly ever willing market. However, it is contended that there is another, possibly more positive dimension to the meaning and significance of the current developments in the ‘soccerscape’. Perhaps the contribution that football may make to bringing Europeans together may do more than any number of EU initiatives to breathe life into the notion of a sense of belonging to Europe. This is clearly recognized even within the business press, such as The Economist (‘How Football Unites Europe’ 31.05.2003), whose ‘Charlemagne’ columnist notes that ‘Over the past decade European football teams have turned into a living breathing embodiment of European integration’. While football is truly a global game, a form of global cosmopolitanism among fans is less likely than the process of Europeanization already discussed. As a consequence of developments in the ‘mediascape’ and ‘ethnoscape’ of elite football, the European is becoming increasingly familiar and, arguably, part of the ‘inside the head’ (Robertson 1992) experience of fans. This may be especially the case with regard to football fans in that most Euro sceptic of people – the English. As Simon Kuper (2000): 24) notes, players such as ‘ … Ginola, Bergkamp and Zola help to put faces on those abstractions: “the French”, “the Dutch” and “the Italians” … ’, emitting also the perhaps subliminal message that the English can get on with Europeans, that Europeans do have something to offer, that the English do not know best in everything. As Martin Jacques (in Leonard 1998: 20) argues ‘The invasion of European football players is seen by most people as a good thing. Ordinary kids in Britain will follow their favorite players around Europe and say “my team is Juventus”’. Moreover, such broadening of horizons among young Europeans is not limited to Britain, as shown by a Guardian interview with Rudi Voeller, coach of the German national team which was to play against England in a crucial World Cup qualifying match in Munich on September 1, 2001 (The Guardian 25-08-01). It is difficult to imagine a more fierce and deep-seated rivalry (and not only in sport) than that between England and Germany, and yet:
Rudi Voeller … [is] playing football in his back garden with his eight year old son Kevin. Kevin Voeller is over the ball preparing to take a free kick in a match as big as his imagination. Kevin shoots, Kevin scores, Kevin shouts. But what does he shout? Kevin Voeller shouts: ‘Yes!! Just like Beckham!!’
It is not being proposed here that national identity is being superseded by European identity among football followers, but rather that national identity is only one facet of an individual's social or collective identity. However, three arguments are advanced; first, that within contemporary society, it may be that collective identity at the supranational, e.g., European level, may have become imaginable. Secondly, it is contended that developments in professional football may have placed that sport in a potentially key role to encourage such a sense of belonging among people. Finally, it is argued that despite its historically insular, even xenophobic and racist culture, developments in contemporary European football may have put that sport at the forefront of this process. Of course, there always remains the threat of sport's close connection with hooliganism and crude nationalism, and it must never be forgotten that the future, as Mangan (1996): 5) notes, is by no means certain:
… in the wake of other forces such as Europeanization, traditional patriotic allegiance associated with the old soccer nations may well come under increasing scrutiny – and perhaps threat … we must wait and see what transpires on soccer fields and terraces and in culture and societies – a more assertive, cosmopolitan Europeanisation or an even more defensive, insular nationalism.
References
Paul Martin is Head of Department of Social and Psychological Sciences at Edge Hill College of Higher Education. His most recent relevant publications include ‘National Identity and Beyond in Contemporary Europe: the potential of the “global game”’ (in press) and ‘“Out of Left Field”: An initial consideration of the developmental potential of football supporter groups in the UK’. He was the convener of the ‘Society and Sport’ Research Network of the European Sociological Association from 1999 to 2003.