Politics and sports

[Pavlov's House Party]

Why are European sports franchises so much more politicized than, say, North American ones? Especially the fans; in North America, fans care for their respective sports as much as European fans, but they tend to stay a heterogeneous mass. From what I understand, European Soccer teams have fans who hold a general political line and many hooligan attacks are political, but here in Canada, fans of Hockey teams can range from near fascist rightists to internationalist communists, and there is almost no organization amongst fans.

tl;dr: why are European sports franchises more politicized then North American ones?

[ComradeOm]

To quote from an old post: That's because US sporting teams are franchise operations. Elsewhere the dominant model is local teams based on and drawing from the community. In many cases, particularly Continental Europe and S America, local fans actually own the clubs and elect officers to run it. See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_franchising) for the differences between the models

Now obviously there is nothing inherently revolutionary about the European model but it is considerably more democratic and, even when private ownership comes into play, ensures that the club remains enmeshed in the local community. Where this community holds a particular political affiliation then its natural that some of this is imparted to the club's professional and fan structures. Italy is notorious for this with many clubs' fan clubs being openly fascist or Communist (such as Lazio and Livorno respectively). Which tends to give games between these sides a certain edge!

Of course its worth adding that only the small minority of European clubs have explicit political identities

[F9]

fuck sport man, politics rule

Dont post such stupiditys again, make it a favor for yourself.