Football and Marxism? [Archive]

Joe_Germinal

27th February 2010, 18:39

Can't find the gramsci quote at the moment.

I think the Gramsci quotation you're looking for might be this one, its from Antonio Gramsci: Pre-Prison Writings, p.73-74:

Observe a game of football: it is the model of individualistic society. It demands initiative, but an initiative which keeps within the framework of the law. Individuals are hierarchically differentiated, but differentiated on the grounds of their particular abilities, rather than their past careers. There is movement, competition, conflict, but they are regulated by an unwritten rule -- the rule of fair play, of which the referee is a constant reminder.

Gramsci thinks that sports are more than just a convenient way to distract the working class from the exploitation and misery of capitalism. Indeed, sports are both the product of capitalist individualism, and one of the many ways in which workers are induced into bourgeois hegemony:

Even in these marginal human activities, we can see a reflection of the economic-political structure of different states. Sport is a popular activity in those societies in which the capitalist regime's individualism has transformed the whole way of life.To my mind he makes a very convincing case.

Comrade B

27th February 2010, 19:11

Soccer is one of the few places where a worker can find relaxation. The purpose of Marxism is to improve the lives of workers and give them more time to do the things they enjoy.

In the US soccer isn't as big, but I am a Jets (American Football) fan. I have to say, though I have never met a Marxist fan of the Patriots or Washington DC, I am pretty sure we wouldn't be so divided by this that we couldn't unite politically.

What Would Durruti Do?

27th February 2010, 20:22

If we were talking about North American sports I would agree that they have been perfected distractions for the working class who also feel the need to spend ridiculous amounts of money on these businesses for their own enjoyment. It's similar to Roman Emperors entertaining their masses with gladiator battles and executions and what not.

However, I think there is the potential for sports to become intertwined with the revolution and to become a tool of working class solidarity and organization.

Take European sports for example. While most football fans tend to be of the nationalistic, even fascistic tendencies, there are still many supporters groups and clubs in Europe with leftist political views and sometimes the supporters even run the club themselves (workplace democracy?)

So while I agree that sports are mostly big business and distraction these days, there are still bright spots which we can use to our advantage. Besides politics, sports are one of the few things that celebrates mass solidarity and struggle among large numbers of people and there's no reason we can't combine the two.

After all, TEAM sports are inherently leftist as they require the collective effort of the team to be successful. For this reason I've always felt sports should be a primary outlet for leftist organizing.

The Idler

27th February 2010, 21:23

Sectarian and at the bloated top of the game, extremely lucrative privileged capitalism. There are no meaningful differences between teams, they are just companies. You might aswell say you support Shell over Exxon. Tell this to a football fan and that you are a fan of socialism which is meaningfully different and you will get more odd looks than a fan of a rival team.

bailey_187

27th February 2010, 21:26

wtf is "soccer"?

Anyway, no, footbal is not a distraction, just a passtime. You cant expect everyone to want to spend every hour reading and doing political stuff etc

JacobVardy

27th February 2010, 22:05

"soccer" is a contraction of "Association Football"

which doctor

27th February 2010, 23:42

at least soccer has an element of politics to it (different supporter groups with different political tendencies, etc.). Just a thought.
Yes, but I think this 'political' element of European soccer clubs is actually detrimental to political consciousness insofar as it naturalizes political competition as being an 'sporting affair.' Ideas aren't fought out on the soccer field, only brute skill is, which is very comparative to the US political environment where the outcome of the election depends on how skillful the political campaigns are. Also, one should note that football hooligan riots bares closer resemblance to nationalist fascism than anything else.

And whoever said that soccer was a borderless, internationalist sport is lying through their teeth. Professional sports encourage and are founded upon notions of regionalism.

Although I've never read it, anyone who's interested in a Marxist treatment of sports, should read CLR James' book, Beyond a Boundary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_a_Boundary)

FreeFocus

27th February 2010, 23:56

And whoever said that soccer was a borderless, internationalist sport is lying through their teeth. Professional sports encourage and are founded upon notions of regionalism.

Everyone around the world plays soccer, in every country, every day. Few other sports can boast this. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. How am I lying through my teeth? I'm not making some unfounded claim, it's a fact, soccer is extremely popular, billions of people enjoy it, and nearly everyone can relate to it. People taking it to extremes and choosing to riot and kill over a game doesn't change these facts.

Jimmie Higgins

28th February 2010, 01:51

Anything that can be said of football (soccer or north American football) or most other sports enjoyed by working class people can equally be said about movies and popular music. Sure it's shitty that there is so much patriotism in American football (imposed from above by the billionaire owners... military marching bands, "support our troops" messages on the scoreboard, mandatory patriotic songs) but it is also shitty that films are full of patriotism and pro-ruling class messages and stupid bourgeois morality and shallow liberal sentiment.

The rich and the ruling class are always going to have a major influence on these institutions because that is how a ruling class establishes it's dominence in society. Theater could not exist in Shakespeare's day without an aristocrat or Elizabeth herself sanctioning it. Today, a major movie, major sports team, major album release and concert tour need sanctionisng, via huge amounts of cash from the rich.

It should also be seen as natural that working class people would want to have escape (in the form of movies, sports, or music) from having shitty lives where they have no control over things. Additionally, sports, hollywood, and popular music, do give us a sense of having connection to people - something really lacking in our modern atomized lives.

Finally, entertainment does not keep people from developing consciousness. People flocked to see meaningless but aesthetically pleasing Hollywood dance reviews in the 1930s, just like people watch American Idol today. While Hollywood has a populist streak, even in the 30s, a lot of movies were just comedies about rich people... none of this mindless entertainment stopped radicalization. Professional American sports also came to be the mega-institutions they are today in the post-war period but that certainty didn't stop radicalism from developing... and then, in turn impacting professional sports because of the growing consciousness of players and fans.

ArrowLance

28th February 2010, 02:40

Well sport differs around the world and is completely related to the cultural, political, and economic spirit of the area where it is developed and practiced. The differences and styles can easily be seen in traditional sports such as baseball in America and football in Europe. With board games such as western chess and eastern go, and even with video games where genre saturation differs greatly between the Japanese, American, and European developers (RPG/Adventure-FPS-FPS/Strategy).

So it is easy to see how sports can serve not only as a distraction, but also as political-economic indoctrination. While this probably isn't a very large issue I would imagine that sport will radically change with revolution as well as many other 'cultural' phenomena.

StalinFanboy

28th February 2010, 04:26

Anyone who implies that somehow football distracts people from whatever should be considered anti-worker. People aren't stupid...

bricolage

28th February 2010, 11:55

I remember a thread on here about golf a while ago and people were saying football, unlike golf, is a teams sport, is good exercise yadda yadda so in their leftist moral elitism it was alright then, now it appears even it is a 'distraction'. It seems someone would be hard pressed to find something that all you in this thread would not consider a distraction, what about reading a novel? Listening to music? Falling in love?

And you wonder why the left has trouble relating to people...

Luisrah

28th February 2010, 12:14

Anyone who implies that somehow football distracts people from whatever should be considered anti-worker. People aren't stupid...

It does distract them. Call me anti-worker.

If it doesn't distract them, then you are right, and I'm simply stupid. If it does distract them, then I am criticizing it, and you don't care because you don't think it distracts them.
Why am I the anti-worker? :confused:

The fact is that, ATLEAST in my country, HALF of the news on TV are about sports, and 90% of that sport is soccer.
A soccer article of news always comes after a disaster or something like that.
Wether or not it's purpose is for that, it DOES work as a distraction.
Most people in my school are soccer avid fans, that talk about nothing but that.

But like someone said before, if it wasn't for that, then it would be something else.

How is it not distracting? I'm not saying people are stupid but, Romans did it with gladiator games, they do it with soccer. Simple.
Of course if things really go bad, it will blow, but until that happens, soccer calms the silly ''change'' ideas anyone may have.

Wanted Man

28th February 2010, 12:22

I think the Gramsci quotation you're looking for might be this one, its from Antonio Gramsci: Pre-Prison Writings, p.73-74:

Gramsci thinks that sports are more than just a convenient way to distract the working class from the exploitation and misery of capitalism. Indeed, sports are both the product of capitalist individualism, and one of the many ways in which workers are induced into bourgeois hegemony:

To my mind he makes a very convincing case.

What's so convincing? It's just a bunch of assertions. I bet most people in this thread spend a few hours every day playing video games. What's the difference?

Come to think of it, perhaps Revleft is also a distraction. ;)

bricolage

28th February 2010, 12:34

The point isn't that football is distracting it's that elites will use whatever they can to take attention away from issues they don't want covered. So it's not that football is by its very nature prone to mass media coverage but that it's easier for the media to push something like it rather than focus on I don't know poverty or industrial unrest. Your issue is with the commercialisation of the sport and the role of mass media not with football itself.

It's not about Abramovich, prawn sandwiches or overpriced shirts, pints & tickets, it's about saturday 3pm kick offs, singing your heart out, kick abouts in the park. It wasn't made the beautiful game by 100grand salaries and skysports.

(A)(_|

28th February 2010, 13:16

Football is a strong tool that governments and dictatorships have used to sedate people with irrelevancies that do not associate to life-related hardships and grievances. This is however an assertion that is widely spread among people, it's not something of an unearthed gem. People however tend to believe that until any real change comes about, the average guy should have a few stress relievers to keep himself sane.

I'm not to make any scientifically based assumption here. But on talking with a few of working class people here, most of them aren't the genuinely hardcore never-miss-a-game type that you'd mostly find among middle class people, they're more tangled in the messes they're already in and some don't really give a shit about football.

On another note, media without a doubt has helped propagate and propel the popularity and relevance of such a sport: "it's the only thing people agree and unite upon", "it's one of the only things that can put a smile on the simple Egyptian's face". These are undisputed claims that most people here would view as true. Pretty much anything mass-supported from pop culture, pop music, football, love, romance, Tv soaps is given more relevance and importance by big-shot corporate moguls. And this is why a third of the population is under the poverty line, however any football game where teams of huge fan bases are involved have roughly 7 Tv stations airing them. This is why Pepsi and Coca Cola spend tremendous amounts of money on making Ads "supporting" the Egyptian national team when there's a tournament Egypt's competing in, this is why matches in the local league have become a very valuable commodity and suddenly have different associations claiming the right to sell them. You get the point, and it's nothing new, the capitalists will put to use anything that will fasten their threshold in any mass-society, football being one of those things; it's one of the many things where the state and the corporate elite team-up under converging benefits to theatrically oppress and sedate the mass populace.

Coggeh

28th February 2010, 13:38

Football is not something used to "distract" workers from revolution that is pretty ridiculous . Football is a working class sport most of the teams in England started out as work teams thats why alot of the nicknames of teams are types of professions e.g the potters, the gunners , the blades etc .

Football has its history and its roots in working class life ,don't forget the capitalists at first tried to ban the games. It has been over the years perversed and ruined by capitalism the very nature has changed for the most part now . But we must fight in order to reclaim football back to its working class roots and away from the grip of multinational capitalists.

http://www.socialismtoday.org/57/reclaim.html good article about socialism and football.

bricolage

28th February 2010, 19:38

Clubs have begun cutting down. Most have abandoned transfers. Just possibly, players' salaries will fall too. But clubs need to go further, and rethink what they are. They don't exist to make money. Rather, their job is to make people happy. Football clubs fill a peculiar hole in British emotional life. Many people get ritual and community chiefly from football. For some, their club's stadium is more a home than the house they live in.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/28/football-money-portsmouth-simon-kuper

I'd also act football and political practice are not necessarily mutually exclusive, eg; http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2009/12/13/return-of-terrace-politics/

StalinFanboy

28th February 2010, 19:48

It does distract them. Call me anti-worker.

If it doesn't distract them, then you are right, and I'm simply stupid. If it does distract them, then I am criticizing it, and you don't care because you don't think it distracts them.
Why am I the anti-worker? :confused:

The fact is that, ATLEAST in my country, HALF of the news on TV are about sports, and 90% of that sport is soccer.
A soccer article of news always comes after a disaster or something like that.
Wether or not it's purpose is for that, it DOES work as a distraction.
Most people in my school are soccer avid fans, that talk about nothing but that.

But like someone said before, if it wasn't for that, then it would be something else.

How is it not distracting? I'm not saying people are stupid but, Romans did it with gladiator games, they do it with soccer. Simple.
Of course if things really go bad, it will blow, but until that happens, soccer calms the silly ''change'' ideas anyone may have.

You're anti-worker because you think people are so stupid that they are incapable of enjoying forms of entertainment and still realizing where the source of our problems is.

And it's stupid to justify your position by using capitalist media. Of course they are going to try to distract us, but that doesn't mean it's working. And I think the main reason people aren't talking about Haiti or whatever in your school, is because these issues are not relevant to their everyday lives.

Seriously, if the Left wants to get anywhere, then they should start doing a better job at talking about things that are actually relevant to the working people in their community. What happened in Haiti sucks, and it blows ass that there are still soldiers killing and dying in Iraq, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm forced into a situation where I have to work a shitty job to barely get by.

Wanted Man

28th February 2010, 22:16

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/28/football-money-portsmouth-simon-kuper

I'd also act football and political practice are not necessarily mutually exclusive, eg; http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2009/12/13/return-of-terrace-politics/

Very interesting article by Simon Kuper (as we are used to from him - a good writer who thankfully also publishes in papers and websites here), and I thought a lot of the discussion below it was good as well. I liked how one poster compared the Premier League to New Labour. It's one of the sad facts of being as young as most of us are: that we've only grown up in the age of corporate sponsorship, sky boxes, prawn sandwiches, crowds that look more like cinema audiences, and "Please sit down, I'm trying to watch the game." :lol:

Sad as it may be, it doesn't change the nature of football itself, and everything we like about it. So let's hope this "capitalist distraction" continues to exist in some form for all eternity.

Luisrah

1st March 2010, 22:52

You're anti-worker because you think people are so stupid that they are incapable of enjoying forms of entertainment and still realizing where the source of our problems is.

And it's stupid to justify your position by using capitalist media. Of course they are going to try to distract us, but that doesn't mean it's working. And I think the main reason people aren't talking about Haiti or whatever in your school, is because these issues are not relevant to their everyday lives.

Seriously, if the Left wants to get anywhere, then they should start doing a better job at talking about things that are actually relevant to the working people in their community. What happened in Haiti sucks, and it blows ass that there are still soldiers killing and dying in Iraq, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm forced into a situation where I have to work a shitty job to barely get by.

That doesn't mean it's working? I think it does. Like you said, those issues aren't relevant to their everyday lives, but football is.
That means that football IS sedating them.

If we had a truly conscious people here, football would be nothing, but for the common man, football, and celebrities and all that shit distracts you. It hinders the revolution's progress. No wonder nothing happens if people spend their afternoons watching Oprah's show, or every single football doccumentary.

bricolage

2nd March 2010, 00:35

That doesn't mean it's working? I think it does. Like you said, those issues aren't relevant to their everyday lives, but football is.
That means that football IS sedating them.

No. It means the ruling class is 'sedating them'. Your elitism is astounding.

If we had a truly conscious people here, football would be nothing,

I sure as hell hope not. It wouldn't be the commercialised, money churning media mess that it is now but it would still be something. Fuck your revolution if there's no football at the end of it.

but for the common man, football, and celebrities and all that shit distracts you. It hinders the revolution's progress.

Seriously I love how you are so apt at judging the common man from your ivory tower, warms the heart. The revolution is being hindered by a lot more pertinent things than football.

No wonder nothing happens if people spend their afternoons watching Oprah's show, or every single football doccumentary.

Or arguing on an internet forum...

Stranger Than Paradise

2nd March 2010, 22:09

I love football and support Arsenal and I am committed to working class revolution.

What is wrong with being interested in something? I like films as well but no one goes around saying being interested in film is a distraction from revolution.

Luisrah

2nd March 2010, 22:29

No. It means the ruling class is 'sedating them'. Your elitism is astounding.

And what did I say?

I sure as hell hope not. It wouldn't be the commercialised, money churning media mess that it is now but it would still be something. Fuck your revolution if there's no football at the end of it.

I didn't mean that. I meant that if we had a truly conscious people, football wouldn't be able to distract them.

Seriously I love how you are so apt at judging the common man from your ivory tower, warms the heart. The revolution is being hindered by a lot more pertinent things than football.

Well... good to know your opinion. I have eyes, and ears, and I can't stop hearing about football here and football there, and better here in Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo just drank some water, he just bought some new socks, whatever.
It's clearly an attempt (and a successful one) to sedate and distract the common man, just like religion.
Religion serves as consolation, and people get apathetic because of it, and football works in a similar way. If a politician says he will raise taxes, some guy may get angry, but later at home he watches some stupid talk show, and he doesn't even remember the first event.

If the proletariat is conscious, than these things can't distract them, but while the pressure and exploitation are still on ''semi-tolerable'' levels (which means, everything seems to be alright), a good game of football calms everyone's mind, because that's how life is, it's just like that.

Or arguing on an internet forum...

You do remember that you are arguing too right?

Ravachol

2nd March 2010, 22:37

I don't give a damn about football, neither as a sport (I prefer to look at MMA really) nor as anything else but what I object to in this thread is the notion of 'a diversion'.

This implies that the primary focus of life should be somehow 'pure politics', which is something I think doesn't exist. Life consists of sequences of activities rooted in material conditions and subjectivities are formed as a consequence of these activities and how we relate to them. The absence of decent housing and food, for example, as a result of the capitalist system is what moves the working class to seek to improve it's conditions spurring them towards political action (in the broadest sense of the word, covering both direct action and parliamentary action). The pro-revolutionary milieu ought to have as one of it's core goals the improvement of the quality of 'life' of the working class. This life covers a wide range of activities, including football. Saying football is a 'distraction' makes as much sense as saying reading a book, eating, sleeping or generally doing anything not directly connected to 'pure politics' is a 'distraction'.
I think that living life and experiencing the material conditions as a member of the working class is a political activity in itself by grace of forming subjectivities regarding these conditions. What activities this 'life' is composed of is of secondary importance.

I share the frustration felt by many on the left regarding the 'sheepisness' of many people who prefer a game of football over improving the world, but we can't rationally except people to politicise immediately. The material conditions of their everyday lives will have to give rise to this. Only a very small segment of the population is politicised and motivated out of purely idealistic reasons. Most of the working class is motivated by material reasons for it's action, people don't join a union because they desire socialism, they join it because they experience the exploitation of the work-floor under capitalism. Eventually, under the right conditions and with the right pro-revolutionary organisation, this will turn in a desire for socialism. But again, this desire doesn't grow from some abstract love for 'what is right', like what is the case with most activist-leftists (including, especially, me), the desire for socialism will grow from the desire for better living quality among the working class.

So running around and shouting everything apart from handing out leaflets, marching to the white house and breaking starbucks windows is a 'distraction' is really equivalent to saying life itself is a distraction.
Whilst we must work to politicise the masses, this isn't incompatible with living life itself. The core reason some people's lives revolve around football is rooted in the workings of capitalism, not in football itself. Secondly, to return to the core of my argument, even if people chose to focus their lives on football under socialism, this wouldn't be a bad thing. As I said, people are largely motivated by material reasons and the improvement of the quality of life with all it's aspects. We must work with this fact and organise around these appeals for improvement instead of focussing blindly on the accumulation of revolutionaries and 'getting the message out'.

Mass industrial action rooted in materialist reasons will bring about socialism, not the masses adopting socialist ideas as a result of revolutionary propaganda and 'political action' alone.

As a note to those confused, I use the term socialism as a catch-all for those political systems advocating worker's control of the means of production and a classless society (basically every tendency here).

FreeFocus

2nd March 2010, 22:46

I do appreciate Luisrah's sentiment of focusing hard on politics and activism, but I think he's taking it a bit far. There are some people out there who are only concerned with/know about sports or celebrities and whatnot. In this sense, all of these things are distractions. However, if one does not allow these things to consume his or her life, preventing them from improving themselves or learning about the world, I don't see a problem (Note: I don't ever find it necessary to care about celebrities or their personal lives, but I don't have a problem with people following sports). I enjoy basketball as a past time, and I'm a huge MMA fan (that isn't just entertainment for me, I love martial arts period), but politics is definitely at the forefront of my mind.

So yes, while sports can become a distraction, they don't have to be. People can make the choice to not let them become distractions. And football is especially a special sport, because you can take a poor kid in a village in Nigeria, a poor kid from a slum in Brazil and a poor kid from the streets of Spain, put them together and have them immediately have a common joy: playing football.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

3rd March 2010, 00:25

Does everything really have to be political?

Sport is (or should be) apolitical, in its outlook.

It's more than unforunate the way in which Premier League Football, in the UK for example, has developed and become more of a business entity first, and a competitive sport second. We, the people, need to take this back, for it is our sport and we love it.

To oppose Football on the grounds that it 'numbs class consciousness and resistance' is the talk of elitists and those who preach Socialism yet don't really understand the wants and needs of the ordinary worker.

tellyontellyon

3rd March 2010, 15:23

I still haven't made my mind up whether 'football is the opium of the masses'... but it is an interesting debate.

From what I've seen lately in South Wales, the 'opium of the masses' is um... opium! .... well... with the occasional Valium thrown in for good luck.

The Idler

4th March 2010, 21:31

I read an article once which compared the Morning Star's coverage of sport to the Socialist Workers' non-coverage of sport.

Devrim

5th March 2010, 06:27

Take European sports for example. While most football fans tend to be of the nationalistic, even fascistic tendencies,

In most European countries the majority of people have some interest in football. Are you really suggesting that most of them are fascists?

Devrim

CartCollector

5th March 2010, 23:08

Yes, yes, people should spend all of their time thinking about the revolution. They should spend every single waking hour striking and agitating. Can't have any "distractions," that's what the bourgeoisie wants! Yup, it's get up, go to agitate and protest for 18 hours, and then back to bed for a good night's sleep, and get up and do it all over again 6 hours later, day after day after day. That'll show those capitalists! Greedy pigs who drive us like slaves to work all day for their own gain...

Wanted Man

5th March 2010, 23:43

I just noticed this, thanks to Devrim's post:

While most football fans tend to be of the nationalistic, even fascistic tendencies, there are still many supporters groups and clubs in Europe with leftist political views and sometimes the supporters even run the club themselves (workplace democracy?)

Contrary to Devrim's polite query, I'm going to have to ask you what the fuck you're talking about. Given the rest of this sentence, you're writing all this with good intentions, but this still seems to rely on a complete ignorance or misunderstanding of sports and politics in Europe.

First of all, where do you get your ideas about "most football fans"? Secondly, what does the existence of some "leftist clubs" say about the sport itself? Thirdly, the same question for clubs that are owned and run by their supporters; while this is an interesting model for the future, again, it says little about the game itself. And finally, what makes you think such a direct line can be drawn between the game and politics? People on Revleft over-emphasise on "leftist teams" and "fascist teams" (oh, if only the world were so easy!), but this is not important to the vast majority of football fans.

After all, TEAM sports are inherently leftist as they require the collective effort of the team to be successful. For this reason I've always felt sports should be a primary outlet for leftist organizing.

Actually, research has shown that team sports are inherently team sports. ;) This kind of stuff is why I'm increasingly avoiding the word "leftist", as it is an annoying and deliberately fuzzy term that only obscures and avoids real issues. I've always found it strange that something as simple as a political direction is considered an "ism" in English and some other languages, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, I'd still like to hear what some people here think about other distractions: video games, online forums in general, Revleft specific. Perhaps Revleft is actually a great distraction. "Sure", you might say, "But at least on Revleft, we're thinking about politics." Maybe the fact that people sit here pontificating on theories and the evils of football, rather than protesting, is the distraction at work here. ;)

Of course, the reality is that it's just one of many ways to spend free time. It's an activity that is worthless to your physical well-being, your social life or your political activity, but to many people, it is sufficiently entertaining and can help sharpen them mentally (debating skills, general knowledge of what goes on in the world, language proficiency in reading and writing, etc.). In that sense, it's more along the lines of reading literature, watching the news, or joining a debating group, but at a lower level. Besides, revolutions are still made by classes, not by individual "leftists", so the amount of "leftists" that leave football/Revleft and go out protesting is not immediately relevant.

It is healthy for people to combine this with entertainment that does not have the same benefits (like watching football). Theoretically, each and everyone of us could give up on both of these forms of entertainment, and spend all that time writing stuff for our organisations and other political work, but how would we then be able to do this effectively? Politics is human work, rooted in society. So we need to be human beings, not article-writing or leafleting robots.

So yeah, sorry, but football is here to stay.

bricolage

6th March 2010, 18:12

I didn't mean that. I meant that if we had a truly conscious people, football wouldn't be able to distract them.

That's not the impression you've been giving off. I think if we had a 'truly conscious people' nothing would be able to 'distract' them, I also maintain that by your logic everything that isn't directly revolutionary is a distraction. I'm happily distracted.

Well... good to know your opinion. I have eyes, and ears, and I can't stop hearing about football here and football there, and better here in Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo just drank some water, he just bought some new socks, whatever.You think it's any different where I live?

It's clearly an attempt (and a successful one) to sedate and distract the common man, just like religion. Religion serves as consolation, and people get apathetic because of it, and football works in a similar way. Once again common man this, common man that, all viewed from your privileged position up high. My charge of elitism stands.

Religion has completely different origins and role in society to football, equating the two is ridiculous. Once again I state your issue is with the media not football.

If a politician says he will raise taxes, some guy may get angry, but later at home he watches some stupid talk show, and he doesn't even remember the first event.How do you know this happens? You think people can't be angry and watch TV at the same time? I'm slightly confused why someone with such disdain for the 'common man' and 'his' inability to think is a supposed communist.

a good game of football calms everyone's mind, because that's how life is, it's just like that.Ha! You ever watched a football match? A good game will leave you anything but calm!

You do remember that you are arguing too right?Indeed, but I'm not the one bleating on about 'distractions'.

Nosotros

6th March 2010, 18:43

Football is indeed an enemy of the revolution, not as a sport, but as a diversion. It separates the workers from conscience.

I feel that directly. When I am at school, you can always hear someone talking about football. Football has millions of fans worldwide, a lots of them don't care about anything else.

The news are always the same. ''A disaster in Haiti! Everyone is diyng, a catastrophe!'', and you can even have this ''US soldiers in Iraq slaughter 2 million civillians, and send 5 millions more to labor camps, just like the Nazis did with Jews'', but right after this ''Manchester United plays with Real Madrid tomorrow, don't miss it!'', and pfff, there it goes.I see your point but thats not the case if you happen to participate in a left-wing football firm such as the Green Brigade.

Devrim

7th March 2010, 07:27

First of all, where do you get your ideas about "most football fans"? Secondly, what does the existence of some "leftist clubs" say about the sport itself? Thirdly, the same question for clubs that are owned and run by their supporters; while this is an interesting model for the future, again, it says little about the game itself. And finally, what makes you think such a direct line can be drawn between the game and politics? People on Revleft over-emphasise on "leftist teams" and "fascist teams" (oh, if only the world were so easy!), but this is not important to the vast majority of football fans.

I think all the talk of 'leftist teams' and 'rightist teams' is nonsense. My tea, Ankaragücü is generally considered to be a 'fascist team', but virtually everyone who I go there with is some some of socialist. This, of course, doesn't say anything about the team, but more about my personal friends.

I like football. My girlfriend likes soap operas. It's entertainment. Some people watch soaps, some go to pottery classes, and some watch football. I don't think that it has any political significance.

A point of interest about football is the way that being in a large united crowd provides a sense of community, which is sadly missing from everyday life. As Marx said, human beings have a longing for community, and football if only for a brief moment once a week can provide that.

Of course it is a false community, but that doesn't stop people enjoying the feeling of belonging.

Devrim

bricolage

25th March 2010, 17:47

I know I'm dredging up an old thread but I found this the other day and thought some people who haven't seen it might be interested in it.

It's All Kicking Off!; The Radical History of Football (http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no9/football.htm)

United, we will make football once again what it ought never to have ceased to be - the sport of joy, the sport of the world of tomorrow which all the workers have started building. EVERYONE TO 60 AVENUE D'IENA!"

Coggeh

25th March 2010, 18:14

Some people are forgetting that football is one of the few traditionally working class sports like i said in an earlier post capitalists did try and ban it at first. I think the sentiment from some people about banning football or calling it a "distraction" comes not from Marxism but their own social hang ups about people who like it tbh.

I would go further and say some other users have been making excuses for even the existence of football or for liking it . The relationship between football and the working class is not as a phony community football it was started as a conscious working class sport, most teams that started out were work teams, they decided to have their games on saturdays and organized to demand that they get Saturday afternoons off to have their matches (which is why english matches usually take place on saturdays at 3pm). The history of football is littered with struggle against capitalism until capitalists decided instead of fighting against it they could use it for their own gain which is why we now have modern football which is literally destroying the game, no i don't mean its nostalgic peoples games roots but actually destroying the game. Dozens of teams are going to have to be disbanded this year alone in the English leagues because of lack of finance regardless of how thousands of supporters feel or the fact that they are simply destroying parts of working class history.

Instead of rambling on about whether football is or is not a working class game people who are football fans should organise themselves within club structures such as supporters clubs and actively oppose shareholder running of the club and call of supporters club ownership which is what were seeing all over England and Ireland with clubs who are going bust because of capitalism. Example being my own local team Cork City who are now run by the supporters and former players.

chebol

26th March 2010, 12:24

A ridiculous question, to which the only sane response is to quote Bill Shankly, Liverpool FC's legendary manager from 1959-1974:

"The socialism I believe in is not really politics. It is a way of living. It is humanity. I believe the only way to live and to be truly successful is by collective effort, with everyone working for each other, everyone helping each other, and everyone having a share of the rewards at the end of the day. That might be asking a lot, but it's the way I see football and the way I see life."

To a genuine football fan, that is how life is. To a genuine socialist revolutionary, that is how life should be.

What lies in between is the exploitation of sport and working people by capitalists and corporations for endless profit. Football remains - despite the apostasy of set-ups like the EPL - the people's game, and it will be (and must be) reclaimed for the people, by the people.

Doubt the importance of the struggle for football's soul? Take a quick look at the Spirit of Shankly (who carry a version of the the above quote on their website), or Manchester United Supporter's Trust, or the other supporter organisations fighting back against the financialisation of football to the detriment of fans, local communities, and the players themselves...

The unity in the fight for a democratic, people-oriented football has already spread beyond club and city, and will continue to grow.

And the fact that this struggle is happening, that football has the potential to unite people in struggle, proves that football is not a distraction. Rather, it is a part of proletarian culture that has been co-opted under capitalism for profit, and that co-option is currently being contested.

It is a playing field in the class war - which team do you support?

You'll never walk alone! :p