Hooligans, Ultras, Activists by Radosław Kossakowski

Author:Radosław Kossakowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030566074
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The Club as a Symbolic Universe

The debate about changes in football, which has been going on for several years, leads to the conclusion that football clubs have become ‘transnational brands’ (Giulianotti and Robertson 2009). Some of them, often those taken over by foreign investors, have been turned into companies making a profit by providing entertainment to customers. As a result, they have ceased to function in the ‘old’ system of meanings, where they were often at the core of local identity. Especially in countries such as England there is a clash between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ discourse on football (see King 1997). Although in some cases fans have managed to take control of their clubs (e.g. Wimbledon, Exeter), the new commercial order has prevailed at the top level of competition. David Goldblatt ironically sums this up: ‘Many of us, myself included, still look to football as an entertainment, a glorious illusion, a soap opera of distraction. Even though we all know that the spectacle is deformed by the worlds of commerce and politics, we still want to disappear into the zone of play, pleasure and irrelevance’ (2018).

In the case of the leagues which have not undergone such a dramatic commercial transformation, the identity of fans can still refer to a certain symbolic universe which has some—smaller or greater—reference to ‘tradition’. One case in point here is Poland: despite a significant modernization of the league system, excellent infrastructure (stadiums modernized or built in recent years), professional television coverage and transfer of clubs into private hands (mainly Polish entrepreneurs and companies), ‘hardcore’ supporters are still an important part of the whole phenomenon. Their position will remain unchallenged for a long time because new stadiums have not been filled up with ‘new’ customers who would be ready to pay a lot to watch the Polish league. Consequently, many fans can still treat their own club as their ‘good old’ space of identity. The process of establishing the club as a ‘universal’ space of meanings can be interpreted in terms of the social phenomenon of ‘legitimation’:

Legitimation ‘explains’ the institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meanings. Legitimation justifies the institutional order by giving a normative dignity to its practical imperatives. It is important to understand that legitimation has a cognitive as well as a normative element. In other words, legitimation is not just a matter of values. It always implies ‘knowledge’ as well. (Berger 1966: 111)

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