Spanish Football and Social Change Football Research in an Enlarged Europe

Series Editors: Albrecht Sonntag, Professor and Director of the EU-Asia Institute at the ESSCA School of Management, France David Ranc, Assistant Professor at the EU-Asia Institute at the ESSCA School of Management, France

Titles include Basak Alpan, Alexandra Schwell and Albrecht Sonntag (editors) THE EUROPEAN FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP Wolfram Pyta and Nils Havemann (editors) EUROPEAN FOOTBALL AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY

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Ramón Llopis-Goig University of Valencia, Spain © Ramón Llopis-Goig 2015 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author have asserted his right to be identiﬁﬁed as the authorof this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN 978-1-349-69143-2 ISBN 978-1-137-46795-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-46795-9

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Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. Contents

List of Tables and Figures vi

Introduction 1 1 Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 8 2 Historical Configuration 27 3 Team Identification and Football Culture 48 4 The Decline of the Spanish Fury 64 5 The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 86 6 Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 104 7 Inductor Masculinities 119 8 Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 136 9 Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 153 Conclusion 174

References 184 Index 196

v List of Tables and Figures

Tables

1.1 Some indicators related to football in Spain 13 3.1 Identification with football clubs in Spanish society 53 3.2 Reasons for identification with football clubs in Spanish society 55 3.3 Image of FC Barcelona in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain 57 3.4 Preferred composition of the FC Barcelona team 57 3.5 Consumption of televised matches, live attendance and acquisition of merchandising 59 9.1 Evolution of sanction proposals for racist or xenophobic offences in Spanish professional football 170

Figure

3.1 Positioning of the main football clubs in Spain 55

vi Introduction

This book presents a sociological analysis of Spanish football, the transformation it has undergone in recent decades, and the processes of social change in which it has been involved. In spite of its enormous presence and influence on the sporting and leisure habits of Spanish society, there have been no books published in Spain addressing the study of football from a sociological point of view and with an academic orientation. What exists is a large journalistic production composed of an important number of sports newspapers – d edicated mostly to football – numerous books that examine certain specific aspects of Spanish football (which it would be impossible to mention here) or what could generically be called ‘club literature’, an expression that could include biographies of footballers and coaches, publications focused on the history of the clubs, or books about recent victories of the Spanish national team. Apart from these types of publications, books dedicated to the study of football from the ambit of the social sciences have been quite limited, even though more than three decades ago the essayist Vicente Verdú paved the way with his original and brilliant study on football cultures (Verdú, 1980). On the other hand, the majority of the academic books dedicated to the study of Spanish football are located within the field of history. There have been especially interesting studies by Duncan Shaw and Carles Santacana on the Franco period, the former on Spanish football in general (Shaw, 1987) and the latter focused on the case of FC Barcelona (Santacana, 2006). Equally valuable is the book by Ángel Bahamonde on the significance of Real Madrid in the history of Spain (Bahamonde, 2000), one by Juan Antonio Simón on the 1982 World Cup held in Spain (Simón, 2012) and the most recent one by Alejandro Quiroga on the relationships between football and national identities throughout history (Quiroga, 2014). Spanish sociology has been much

1 2 Spanish Football and Social Change less prolific in the study of football. Its lack of interest in football has been largely due to the influence of the tradition that considered it a form of social anaesthesia and an instrument that extends ignorance. Perhaps for this reason, the first books by sociologists dealt only with topics like the vandalism and violent groups that emerged in Spanish football in the 1980s. The seriousness of the topic and the need to discover the reasons for these behaviours put an end to suspicions of frivolity and signified a scientific and professional challenge for Spanish sociology. The same thing occurred at the beginning of the 21st century when racist and xenophobic outbreaks appeared in football stadiums. In this regard, we can mention the books by Miguel Cancio and Javier Durán in the 1990s (Cancio, 1990; Durán, 1996a), as well as the most recent ones by Carles Viñas (2005; 2006). Naturally, these and other investigators have made many more contributions in the form of articles that are later cited in the different chapters on these topics. As the author of this book, I must say that I have always been extremely fascinated by this sport, called the deporte reyy (the sport king) in Spain, although the reasons for this fascination have varied over the years. In any case, at the end of the 1990s, I began to become aware of the heuristic potential of Spanish football as the object of sociological study. After joining the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia in 2001, I turned the sociological analysis of football into one of my main areas of research. This book is the fruit of more than a decade of dedication to this research area, from which various articles have emerged over the years that have been published in scientific journals. In writing the different chapters included in this book, I have gone back to many of these earlier studies and, when appropriate, used fragments of them. For this reason, and even though I dislike referring to my own work and try to avoid it, my main publications on the different topics addressed are cited in the References. The purpose of the studies presented in this book is to go beyond football as a sport, which means exploring the social, political and cultural dimensions of its recent evolution. The technical aspects of football, that is, those related to the footballers’ physical preparation and the development of playing tactics and strategies, are not foreign to the topics dealt with in some of the chapters of the book, although they are always placed within a broader sociological context. This is the case, for example, in Chapter 4 when examining the evolution of the playing style and recent international victories of the Spanish national team. In other words, the studies included in this book have a first point Introduction 3 of union in the common sociological perspective used to elaborate them. This sociological perspective aims to unravel those aspects that go unnoticed by those who, blinded by its unquestionable social hegemony, contemplate football as a ‘natural target’. And it is this sociological perspective that makes it possible to identify the ‘analytical orifices’ through which one can sociologically reflect on the game, in order to access the interpretive clues that help to understand why and how Spanish football has become the way it is. The topics emerging from this study perspective form a broad range of interlaced questions: the role of football in today’s Spanish society, the historical reasons for its social hegemony, the main traits of the Spanish football culture, the role of regional and national identities, political links, the traditional weaknesses of the Spanish national team, the significance of its recent international victories, the origin and evolution of the furia española (Spanish fury) as a playing style, the transformation of the football clubs into companies, the fans’ perspective of this transformation, the detraditionalization processes, the hyper-consumption of football, the ambivalence of current Spanish football, the mechanisms for reproducing the hegemonic masculinity, and the more recent rise of violent groups, vandalism and outbreaks of racism and xenophobia in the stadiums. Some of these topics are specifically addressed in one chapter. Others are present in various chapters. And still others, without being the subject of any of the chapters, appear in some of them. Even so, the topics dealt with in the nine chapters of this book do not address all the possibilities for the sociological analysis of Spanish football. Other interesting topics to be examined in future studies are the relationship between football and the mass media, the migratory processes and the clubs’ teams, the dynamics of globalization, the evolution of the football stadiums, the rivalries between the clubs, and the meaning of what has been called in recent years El Clásico, that is, the matches between the two giants of Spanish football: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The nine chapters that make up the present book are a clear example of the richness of Spanish football as a source of sociological analysis. The wide variety of topics described above are examined from diverse theoretical proposals and methodological approaches presented in each of these nine chapters. Therefore, there is no one theoretical or methodological approach for the whole book, which responds to the demands of the diversity of topics addressed, the epistemological characteristics of each specific object of study, and the different disciplinary frameworks (history, social anthropology, social psychology, marketing), which, along 4 Spanish Football and Social Change with sociology, converge in the study of the social, political and cultural dimensions of Spanish football. The nine chapters are divided into four large blocks. The first block is composed of two chapters that provide a description of the importance and role of football in Spanish society today (Chapter 1), and an analysis of the historical evolution process that has led to its current configuration (Chapter 2). The second block contains two chapters that examine Spaniards’ football culture and their identification with football clubs (Chapter 3), as well as the social significance of the recent victories of the Spanish national football team (Chapter 4). The next two chapters make up the third block, in which special attention is paid to the main changes that occurred in the structure and organization of the football clubs (Chapter 5) and the effect of these changes on the fans’ perspective (Chapter 6). Finally, the fourth block is composed of three chapters that deal with other dimensions of football, such as gender aspects (Chapter 7) and violent (Chapter 8) and racist (Chapter 9) behaviours of fans. The book begins with an introductory chapter that describes the importance of Spanish football as a physical-sport practice (popular and federated), as a consumer product and as a collective identification space, and it shows its central role in the leisure activities of Spanish society. Based on the main data gathered on these aspects, the second part of the chapter offers an interpretation of the role of football in Spanish society, leading to the conclusion that it can be considered one of Spaniards’ main secular rituals. However, how can football’s hegemony in the sport system and leisure habits of Spaniards be explained? And how can its configuration be understood as one of the main rituals of Spanish society? The answers to these questions are presented in the second chapter, which contains an historical approach to the origins and evolution of Spanish football in the 20th century. It is not an exhaustive chapter, as it dwells only on those periods and factors that have marked the evolution of Spanish football and determined its current configuration. First, reference is made to the period between the birth of Spanish football at the end of the 19th century and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. After dedicating a second section to the period of the dictatorship of General Franco (1939–75), the third section focuses on the ups and downs of Spanish football from the reestablishment of democracy to the present day. The third chapter offers an approach to Spanish fans’ identification with the football clubs, as well as other aspects of Spanish football culture. After developing a theoretical introduction to the topic under consideration, Introduction 5 the second section examines the identification with football clubs in Spanish society and analyses the reasons for it. It includes an analysis of the positioning of the main football clubs. Then, after focusing on the specific case of FC Barcelona, the third section of this chapter offers an analysis of the main consumer behaviours and habits of Spanish fans. The fourth chapter focuses on the Spanish national team, which has begun to attract interest in recent years. Its recent success in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2008 and 2012 UEFA European Championships have gained it first place in FIFA’s worldwide ranking, and provided it with widespread international recognition for both its decisive victories and the team’s playing style. This chapter contains four sections. The first consists of an historical analysis of the origins of the Spanish national team and the birth of the myth of the Spanish furyy as the characteristic playing style of this team. The second one reviews the performance of the national team in important international competitions and championships throughout its history, and presents the arguments usually used to explain the team’s results. The third section offers an interpretation of the aspects that played an essential role in redefining the playing style of the Spanish national team, as well as the other keys to the victory in the Euro 2008. The fourth section examines the significance of this and the two later victories in Spanish society, as well as the impact these victories have had on revitalizing the Spanish identity. The fifth chapter uses a sociological approach to study Spanish football clubs from an organizational perspective. The study focuses on examining the clubs’ origin and evolution throughout the 20th century, and it ends by analysing the processes of structural configuration and differentiation developed by the clubs in recent years. The study is based on the hypothesis that the clubs’ structural configuration and differentiation processes constitute a response to the environment they have to deal with. The analysis begins with the process of creating and articulating the football clubs as sporting sociability associations in the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries. It then focuses on the configuration they acquired in the Francoist period, when the sports policy of the regime withdrew the privacy and autonomy they had enjoyed up until that time. The next two sections examine the clubs’ main responses to the environmental challenges: first, a description of their conversion into Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas (SAD, public limited sports companies) at the beginning of the 1990s; second, a presentation of their progressive transformation into transnational corporations, as well as the structural differentiation processes experienced by the main Spanish football clubs. Finally, the fourth section of the 6 Spanish Football and Social Change chapter offers a synthesis of the results of various qualitative studies that have examined the fans’ perceptions and opinions about the clubs’ transformation processes. The sixth chapter analyses the impact of the processes leading to the commodification of the clubs on the ethos of the fans, and it describes the fans’ transformation into hyper-consumers. The chapter shows the continuity of the teams’ feelings of identification in a context in which families and local communities lose their socializing influence in favour of big celebrities and other agents of horizontal influence. The penetration of commercial logic has increased the spectacle of football and created a space of hyper-consumption in which the fans, now uninvolved in the clubs’ progress, throw themselves into enjoying the match and the recreational and festive experience it provides. The progressive loss of competitive equilibrium and the economic unsustainability of the majority of the clubs produce an ambivalence that threatens to under- mine the current football setting. The next chapter focuses on questions related to gender. It examines the degree to which football continues to be a space for constructing a masculine hegemony, and it shows the determinant role played by the so-called inductor masculinities. This chapter also studies the position of Spanish women in football, and it presents an analysis of groups of female football supporters. The book ends with two chapters that study episodes of open expressions of violence and racism at certain times in the stadiums. The eighth chapter examines the evolution of violent behaviours and analyses the characteristics of the groups that have carried them out. The last one focuses on racist, xenophobic and intolerant behaviours, as well as the measures taken by the government to eradicate them. As mentioned earlier, this book is the result of more than ten years of research and study of Spanish football. During this time, I have published many studies related to the topics dealt with in this book. Most of the chapters are based on these previous materials, which have been re-formulated and updated for this book. Chapter 1 is a re-writing and, in some cases, an updating of the data and arguments included in three articles published previously in the journals Anduli Revista de Ciencias Sociales (2006a), Panorama Social (2011a) and Sport in Societyy (2014a). Chapter 2 is based on articles published in the Revista Internacional de Sociología (International Sociological Journal) (2006b) and Soccer and Societyy (2008a), although it will be difficult to see traces of them in what is presented here. To a large degree, Chapter 3 comes from an article published in the Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte Introduction 7

(International Journal of Sport Science) (2013a), although the section dedicated to FC Barcelona is a synthesis of what was published in the European Journal for Sport and Societyy (2008b). The first part of Chapter 5 comes from a paper included in the book El cambiante mundo de las organizaciones (The Changing World of Organizations) (2013b), whereas the last section of this chapter as well as the last part of the following chapter were previously published in the Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte (2014b). Chapter 7 is a re-writing and updating of works published in Sport in Societyy (2008c), Sistema (2009a; 2010) and the book Women, Football and Europe (2007a), although a very similar version to the one included here was published in the book Sport, Bodies, Identities and Organizations (2011b). Finally, Chapter 8 is a further development of some preliminary papers published in the books The Changing Role of Public, Civic and Private Sectors in Sport Culture (2007b) and Kuningaspelin Kentät – Jalkapalloilu paikallisena ja globaalina ilmiönä (2007c), whereas Chapter 9 is based on previous studies published in Physical Culture and Sport (2009b) and Soccer and Societyy (2013c). 1 Spaniards’ Secular Ritual

Football is the most popular sport in Spain, and its strong attraction is clearly reflected in its economic dimensions. Recent estimations of the economic influence of Spanish football concluded that it had an effect on production of some €4,000,000,000, almost one per cent of the general Gross National Product (GNP) and about 1.2 per cent of the GNP of the services sector (LFP, 2004). Adding in other indirect effects, such as employee remuneration and the gross operating surplus, the total impact of Spanish football on the Spanish economy climbs to €8,066,000,000, approximately 1.7 per cent of the overall GNP and 2.5 per cent of the GNP of the services sector, and it provides direct or indirect employment to almost 66,000 people (LFP, 2004). Within this vast economic reality of Spanish football, two clubs have an especially significant economic impact: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. According to the study carried out by the Deloitte auditing agency every year, in 2011 these two clubs – for the third consecutive year – were the clubs with the highest incomes in the world, billing €479,500,000 and €450,700,000, respectively (Deloitte, 2012). However, when talking about the economic impact of Spanish football, one is actually referring to professional football, conceived of as a sport-spectacle and, therefore, the basis for its transformation into a product of mass consumption. Nevertheless, today’s football is also a physical-sport activity capable of attracting people from diverse social situations as players. Whether as a practice linked to leisure, recreation and fun or as a federated competitive practice, football is the most important sport practised in Spain. The two aforementioned dimensions provide a clear example of the way football currently advances in different directions based on values and interests that can be contradictory, giving it a somewhat paradoxical

8 Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 9 nature. On the one hand, as a sport-performance it is undergoing a process of growing professionalization whose development is based on an economic rationale, commercial profits and scientific-technological advances. On the other hand, as a popular sport activity, it is practised for reasons of fun-recreation, health and social integration. In any case, in both its sport-spectacle facet and its sport-physical exercise dimension, football plays an important role in people’s lives, as both dimensions are intended to break up the daily routine, and they are located in the space of leisure and free time. These two dimensions are not, however, the only ones operating in the logic of Spanish football today. For many years, the social sciences have highlighted football’s potential as a space for expressing collective identities (Bromberger, 2000, p. 262). In the majority of European countries, football was initially established as a ritualized public sphere that produced representations of what is national or regional. In Spain, during the first third of the 20th century, football became organized regionally and expressed what are now known as regional identities. Currently, football clubs continue to have a strong potential for affiliation, and they have become institutions with great public prominence (Llopis-Goig, 2006a). The three above-mentioned dimensions are a clear example of the multidimensional character of football, and they show that this complex social phenomenon cannot be explained one-dimensionally or from a unitary perspective. Football has a competitive dimension directly inherited from traditional sports, but it also includes physical activities of a popular nature that have little formal organization and are constantly undergoing diversification and innovation processes. There is an aspect of football that is related to consumption and linked to its transformation into a show, but it can also be considered a space for the expression and affirmation of collective identities. Finally, the phenomenon of football is experiencing a growing rationalization and commodification, while also having the capacity to influence sociability habits and produce feelings of cohesion and solidarity. All of these elements make up the complex reality of today’s football. The purpose of this chapter is to show the predominance of football in Spanish society based on the three dimensions mentioned above. The intention is to show that, as a sport-physical activity, as a show performed by professionals and designed for mass consumption, and as a space for the dynamics of collective identification, football holds a fundamental place in the sport and leisure habits of Spanish society (Llopis-Goig, 2011a). This chapter, however, is not limited to this 10 Spanish Football and Social Change objective, as it also provides an interpretation of the role of football in Spanish society. The second part of this chapter will describe football as the main secular ritual of Spaniards. This is the role it has played in Spanish society since the early 1900s, when numerous football teams were created, many stadiums were built, the number of fans increased considerably, and the sport became a spectacle for the masses (Shaw, 1987; Ball, 2010; Domínguez, 2011; Bahamonde, 2011). Certainly, in other European countries football also holds a prominent social position and has become a true secular ritual over time. However, the argument presented in this chapter is that the special combination of these two aspects in Spanish society has made football an especially relevant social phenomenon. The next chapter will show the historical process through which football has reached this predominant position in Spanish society. The research is based on the analysis of various secondary sources, among which are two annual reports and five surveys. The annual reports used were the 2013–14 Professional Football League Annual Report (LFP, 2014) and the Sports Statistics Annual Directory (CSD, 2014), although in both cases editions corresponding to previous years were also con- sulted. The surveys used were: the General Summary from October 2013 to May 2014 of the General Media Survey (EGM, 2014); the Report on the Survey of Cultural Practices and Habits 2010–11 by the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sport of the Spanish Government (MCED, 2012); the May 2007 and June 2014 Barometers of the Sociological Research Centre (CIS, 2007; CIS, 2014, respectively); and the National Survey on Spaniards’ Sport Habits, also conducted by the same centre (CIS, 2010).

The predominance of football in the sport and leisure habits of Spanish society

According to the May 2007 Barometer of the Sociological Research Centre, 54.3 per cent of Spanish adults are interested in football. This proportion is much larger than what is obtained by other sports such as car racing (29.9 per cent) and tennis (29.6 per cent), more than double that of basketball (25.9 per cent) and motorcycle racing (22.8 per cent), and three times that of athletics (15.5 per cent). The interest in football remained stable for two decades; however, in the mid-1990s it began a growth tendency that was probably related to the transformation of the clubs into Sport Companies, the European community’s liberalization of the footballers’ job market (beginning with the well-known Bosman case), or the creation and restructuring of competitions like Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 11 the Champions League. These events led to a profound transformation in football and increased its attraction, releasing it from the political stigma it had begun to acquire in the second half of the 1980s, when radical groups charged into numerous stadiums, producing an increase in violence (Viñas, 2006; Llopis-Goig, 2007b). At the end of the 1990s, the proportion of the population interested in football had already reached 49 per cent, a percentage that continued to increase until reaching the above-mentioned 54.3 per cent in 2007. However, interest in football varies among diverse social groups. Gender is probably the variable most associated with an interest in football, as Table 1.1 shows (see p. 13) that football’s popularity reaches 71.1 per cent among men, but only 38.2 per cent in the case of women. In addition, the relationship with socioeconomic conditions is also significant: the proportion of people interested in football is quite high among skilled workers (69.8 per cent), students (63.6 per cent) or managers and professionals (62.2 per cent), while the lowest levels are registered among technicians and mid-level positions (45.8 per cent) and people dedicated to unpaid housework (38.6 per cent). Regarding age, a significant negative linear relation is detected, so that as age increases, the interest in football decreases: 62.7 per cent of young people from 18 to 24 years old are interested, while among people over 65 years old, the interest decreases to 50.4 per cent. A significant linear relationship is also detected in the educational level, although in this case it is curvilinear. The groups with the lowest and highest educational levels reveal a lower percentage of interest, 44.7 per cent among people with no studies and 46.4 per cent among those with high-level university studies, while the groups with primary studies and occupational training register higher rates of interest (59.4 per cent and 55.3 per cent, respectively). However, there are no significant differences related to habitat size, which demonstrates the broad geographical spread of interest in football.

Federated football practice Sport practice has experienced extraordinary growth in Spanish society in the past few decades. Two indicators support this statement, one having to do with its popular practice and the other related to its federated practice. Regarding the former, while in 1975 popular sport practice was situated at 22 per cent, the most recent Survey on Sport Habits elevates it to 39.6 per cent (CIS, 2014). Regarding federated practice, there has been an impressive increase in the number of registered licences in the various Spanish sport federations, with their number being multiplied 12 Spanish Football and Social Change by more than seventeen during the 1960–2013 period, going from 201,296 to 3,394,635 (CSD, 2014). Football as a federated sport has not been immune to this growth. There has also been an extraordinary increase in its presence among the leisure activities performed by the Spanish population. This growth trend is made evident by the increase in the number of licences registered by the Spanish Royal Football Federation during the same time period mentioned above: while in 1960 there were 43,436, in 2013 this number had grown to 855,987, nineteen times that of fifty years earlier. Thus, in spite of the large number of modalities that have enriched the repertoire of Spanish sport activities in the past few decades, the federated practice of football has experienced greater growth than the others, which clearly shows its prevalence. In fact, it was the sport modality with the largest proportion of federated licences in Spain in 2013, 24.6 per cent. Its volume of federated players is far superior to that of basketball, which appears in second place (with 400,153 licences: 11.8 per cent) or hunting (369,895: 10.9 per cent), golf (294,884: 8.7 per cent), mountain climbing (161,188: 5.0 per cent), judo (106,466: 3.1 per cent), tennis (89,830: 2.6 per cent), handball (91,819: 2.7 per cent), athletics (62,355: 1.8 per cent), karate (61,395: 1.8 per cent) and fishing (56,889: 1.7 per cent). These ten sport federations – out of a total of sixty-six – including football – surpass one per cent each, and together add up to 74.7 per cent. Therefore, football has resisted the widespread emergence of different sport modalities in the past few decades, and it has maintained its relative weight in the panorama of Spanish federated sports. Federated football licences have made up more than 20 per cent of Spanish federated sport licences since the beginning of the 1960s, when it represented 21.6 per cent. Since then, the proportion has generally been between 21 and 24 per cent; although at some points it has fallen below 20 per cent.

Football as a popular sport practice Apart from these data, a recent Barometer of the Sociological Research Centre (CIS, 2014) reveals that, among the population over the age of 18 that plays a sport, 18.0 per cent practise football (see Table 1.1). This percentage includes the different forms, that is, football in a large stadium, indoor football, football 7, five-a-side and beach football, although the first one alone reaches 14.9 per cent. According to this study, 52.5 per cent practise it three or more times per week, 41.8 per cent once or twice a week, and 5.7 per cent less frequently. These data show that football is quite present and rooted in the daily lives of those who play it, as it is mainly played all year and regularly during the week. Table 1.1 Some indicators related to football in Spain

Socio-demographic Interest in Practice of TV audience Identification variables football football of matches with a team

Sex Men 71.1 29.5 58.7 78.6 Women 38.2 1.3 23.1 56.5 Age From 18 to 24 62.7 44.0 49.8 76.2 From 25 to 34 57.8 24.744.9 69.0 From 35 to 44 51.1 16.0 39.5 66.5 From 45 to 5453.3 10.0 38.1 70.9 From 55 to 6453.5 4.338.9 69.1 65 or more 50.4 0.134.1 57.8 Educational level Unfinished primary studies 44.7 9.127.4 52.4 Primary education 59.4 4.9 39.2 66.0 Secondary education 53.2 24.2 44.1 71.9 Occupational training 55.3 16.7 44.1 70.4 Mid-level university studies 46.9 12.5 36.6 63.3 High-level university studies 46.4 15.4 37.6 65.2 Socioeconomic condition Managers and professionals 62.2 14.8 42.8 76.5 Technicians and 45.8 14.7 36.2 64.0 mid-level positions Small business owners 51.4 18.2 42.6 72.5 Farmers 61.3 0.1 43.7 74.2 Employees in offices and 50.3 10.2 33.1 68.8 services Skilled workers 69.8 19.7 57.3 78.3 Unskilled workers 57.120.8 46.0 66.5 Retired people and 55.3 1.7 40.2 62.8 pensioners Unemployed 48.9 23.7 43.9 65.3 Students 63.6 44.0 47.5 74.4 Unpaid housework 38.6 0.1 21.6 53.3 Size of habitat Less than 10.000 55.9 18.8 39.1 66.0 From 10.001 to 50.000 55.0 16.5 40.5 67.7 From 50.001 to 100.000 59.2 19.0 39.1 65.9 From 100.0001 to 400.000 52.117.240.6 66.1 More than 400.000 50.8 19.6 44.2 67.8 Average 54.3 18.0 40.7 66.8 N 2,473 983 8,919 2,473

* For the data on the television audience, the first age span is 15–24 years. The television audience data are the sum of those who see all or almost all and those who see a lot of matches on television. ** The data of interest, the audience of televised football matches and identification with a football team were calculated based on the entire sample, while the data on the practice of football refer to the group that practises a sport (39.6 per cent of the population over 18 years old). Source: Llopis-Goig (2011a, 2014a). The data of interest and identification with a team come from the Sociological Research Centre (CIS, 2007), as do the data on the television audience (CIS, 2010) and the practice of football (CIS 2014). 14 Spanish Football and Social Change

Regarding the social profile of Spaniards who practise football, the data included in Table 1.1 reveal that playing football is significantly related to sex, age, educational level and socioeconomic position. In the case of sex, the rate registered among men is 29.5 per cent, while in women it is only 1.3 per cent. The differences according to age are even greater: in the group from 18 to 24 years old, football is practised by more than four out of ten young people (44 per cent), a percentage that descends to 0.1 per cent in people over 64 years old, drawing a negative linear relation. In the case of educational level, the lowest level of practice is registered in people with primary school studies (4.9 per cent), while the highest levels are found among people with secondary studies (24.2 per cent). Socioeconomic position also produces important differences in the practice of football: the lowest rates are registered among people who do unpaid housework (0.1 per cent) and retired people and pensioners (1.7 per cent), while the highest rates appear among students (44 per cent), unskilled workers (20.8 per cent) and the unemployed (23.7 per cent). Finally, there is no association between the practice of football and the size of the habitat. As Table 1.1 shows, the data are very similar at the different habitat levels.

Attendance at stadiums According to Professional Football League data, during the 2013–14 season the attendance at first division football stadiums (BBVA League) ranged between 188,931 for the second game and 305,242 for the 38th, while in the second division (Adelante League) it ranged between 62,589 for the 15th game and 109,011 for the 42nd. For the entire season, there were a total of 9,621,052 attendees in the first division and 3,384,094 in the second division, or 13,005,146 attendees in all (LFP, 2014). As can be observed, the extraordinary mobilization capacity of Spanish football has not been affected by the emergence of numerous audio-visual distribution channels in the past ten years (cable television, satellite, Internet …). In fact, the accumulated attendance at the stadiums during the past decade has remained stable at between 12 and 13 million people (LFP, 2014). According to a recent survey (CIS, 2007), 41 per cent of the Spanish adult population attended sport events at stadiums during a one-year period. Of this 41 per cent, 54.9 per cent say they bought a ticket to attend a football match at least once in the previous 12 months. This percentage is higher than the one for basketball, which appears in second place with 15.4 per cent, and much higher than other sport modalities that are quite popular in Spain, such as motorcycle racing (9.1 per cent), Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 15 car racing (8.0 per cent), tennis (7.5 per cent) and athletics (3.9 per cent). These data make it possible to state that 22.5 per cent of the adult population bought a ticket to watch a football match in the past year. Taking into account that the universe in the survey was the population 18 years old and over, which at that time numbered 38,916,000, about 8,760,000 people attended a stadium during the year to watch a football match with a ticket bought at the stadium. This number is clearly higher than for any other leisure event or show habitually performed in Spanish society (MCED, 2012). Regarding the performing arts, the theatre has 7,473,000 spectators a year, ballet and dance performances 2,381,000, opera 1,025,000 and zarzuela (light opera) 618,000. Regarding musical concerts, classical music concerts drew a total of 1,726,000 spectators, while popular music reached 6,522,000 (in both cases, these concerts are for ticket-holders and are not free). Exceeding this number are the yearly visitors to museums, which reach 7,589,000 people (visitors with paid tickets). On the other hand, 6,816,000 and 6,416,000 people visit amuse- ment parks and zoos every year, respectively. Theme parks and aquari- ums follow, with 5,881,000 and 5,749,000 visitors, respectively. Finally, bull fights receive 3,294,000 spectators annually, and circuses receive 3,176,000. Therefore, regarding the ability to attract the public, it can be said that football has a clear lead in the leisure habits of Spanish society.

Audiences at football matches The previous data must be complemented with information related to audiences. In this regard, football also shows a clear superiority. In 2013, the ten most-viewed televised programmes were all football matches. They were watched by audiences ranging from 8.8 to 13.3 million viewers. The match with the largest television audience in 2013 was the one between Spain and Italy, as part of the Confederations Cup, which was played on 27 June 2013, with an audience of 13,355,000 viewers and a share that at some moments reached 67.9 per cent. The second most-viewed match of that year was the final match of the King’s Cup between Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid, with 11,449,000 viewers and a share of 57.8 per cent. The data reveal that television has converted football matches into a ‘ritual’, where millions of people meet in their homes or public bars looking for experiences of collective emotion and enthusiasm. It is not surprising, therefore, that sport programmes are part of the habitual programming of television stations, because football, as a televised product, is not only one of the most highly demanded programmes, but it also obtains some of the highest audience percentages. This situation is reinforced by the fact that while 30 per cent of the Spanish 16 Spanish Football and Social Change population aged 15 and over claims to watch all, almost all or a lot of sport programmes, the percentage increases to 40.7 per cent in the case of football matches (see Table 1.1). The five variables analysed in relation to the consumption of televised football present a statistically significant association. Men consume televised football matches at a level almost triple that of the percentage registered for women (58.7 per cent compared to 23.1 per cent). In the case of age, a negative lineal relationship is detected: consumption diminishes with age. Among young people between 15 and 24 years old, a percentage of 49.8 per cent is registered that declines progressively with age until reaching 34.1 per cent among people over the age of 64. The population with no educational qualifications is located far below the average at 27.4 per cent, but all of the other groups obtain percentages that range between 36.6 per cent for people with mid-level university studies and 39.2 per cent for people with primary studies. The exceptions are people with secondary education or occupational training, who have much higher rates: in both cases, 44.1 per cent. Differences based on socioeconomic condition are greater, ranging from 21.6 per cent for people who do unpaid housework to 57.3 per cent for skilled workers. Various groups, however, present scores quite near the general average: managers and professionals (42.8 per cent), small business owners (42.6 per cent), farmers (43.7 per cent) and retired people and pensioners (40.2 per cent). The size of the habitat is associated with consuming televised football matches, with the highest proportion registered among people who live in cities with more than 400,000 inhabitants. Finally, as a consumer product, football is also significantly linked to another medium, the written press. Data provided in the most recent annual report of the General Media Study reveal that four out of the seven most widely read newspapers in Spain are sport-oriented, not to mention those that are dedicated exclusively to football (EGM, 2014). The sport newspaper Marca appears in first place in the ranking of readers, with 2.6 million daily, followed at a distance by the newspaper El País, which does not reach two million (1.68 million readers). In third place is the daily sport newspaper AS (1.34 million readers daily), in sixth place the newspaper El Mundo Deportivo (603,000 daily readers) and in ninth place Sport (554,000 readers daily) (EGM, 2014). Moreover, González-Ramallal showed in his studies that football is the main content of the sports section of the written press, radio and television (González-Ramallal, 2004, p. 275). Approximately three-fourths of the units of sport information contained in the media deal with aspects of football, with the case of television being especially significant, where Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 17 football makes up 85 per cent of its sport content. These data clearly demonstrate the extraordinary support that football receives in media programming.

Football as a space for identification The social sciences have pointed out that football is the ideal space for expressing collective identities and local, regional and national rivalries (Bromberger, 2000, p. 262). This section offers empirical evidence about the feelings of belonging awakened by football clubs in Spanish society, feelings whose strength and relevance could allow these clubs to be considered as a ‘reserve’ of collective identification. The available data show that seven out of ten Spaniards – exactly 66.8 per cent – support a football team, regardless of whether they are interested in football or not (CIS, 2007).1 This number shows that identification with a football team goes beyond interest in this sport; while the percentage of the population interested in football is 54.3 per cent, the percentage of people who identify with a team is 66.8 per cent. This proportion confirms that the clubs are an important object of identification for Spaniards, even surpassing the rate of identification with political parties, which some recent surveys have situated between 48.6 per cent and 55.4 per cent (Rico, 2010, p. 150). Therefore, in Spain each football club is ‘more than a club’ to its fans, which happens to be the FC Barcelona slogan but holds true for all football clubs in Spain. Chapter 2 will further examine the historical aspects that marked the birth and evolution of Spanish football clubs. However, it is necessary to clarify at this point that from the first third of the 20th century (Domínguez, 2011; Bahamonde, 2011), they became an embodiment of the cities or regions where they arose, establishing an intense emotional symbiosis that has been maintained over time. In other words, Spanish football clubs are prolongations of their local and regional cultures. Therefore, one can identify with them without even being interested in football, as pointed out above. Beyond the general data on identification with a football club, referred to in the previous paragraph, Table 1.1 shows how these feelings are distributed among the different population groups in Spain. Identification with a football club remains above 50 per cent in all cases, although it is higher in men (78.6 per cent), people from 18 to 24 years old (76.2 per cent), and those with secondary education (71.9 per cent), as well as in managers and professionals (76.5 per cent), skilled workers (78.3 per cent), students (74.4 per cent) and farmers (74.2 per cent). In contrast, women (56.5 per cent), people over the age of 65 (57.8 per cent), retired people and 18 Spanish Football and Social Change pensioners (62.8 per cent) and people who do unpaid housework (53.3 per cent) are the groups with the lowest levels of identification with a football club.

Spanish football as a secular ritual

The previous section examined the position of football in Spanish society based on three dimensions that clearly define today’s sports: its condition as a sport-physical practice, its character as a spectacle performed by professionals and directed toward mass consumption, and its configuration as a space in which dynamics of collective identification are produced. The analysis of the available empirical material has shown the superiority of football in the three dimensions and, therefore, its central role in the system of sport and leisure habits of Spanish society. However, anyone familiar with Spanish society could allege that football in Spain is more than just a ‘leisure activity’. It is – as has been highlighted on many occasions – a ‘ritual’, the ritual par excellence of Spaniards (Llopis-Goig, 2006a). As Phil Ball (2010, p. 201) points out, Spain is a deeply ritualistic country that dedicates a lot of effort to preserving religious, cultural and artistic traditions, resulting in a large variety of festive celebrations at the regional and local levels. Football holds a privileged place within this scenario of festive rituals, even though these celebrations were established long before football took root in Spanish territory. Football was incorporated into the repertoire of local festivities and rituals and became integrated in the lifestyle of Spaniards during the first two decades of the 20th century, according to various historians (Shaw, 1987; Domínguez, 2011; Bahamonde, 2011). Beyond the thesis that interprets modernization as a set of processes of differentiation, rationalization and secularization of the social structure that relegate ritual and festive acts to a marginal place, some authors have argued that modern society ‘has been constituted in its basic structure by metabolizing the religious function’ (Gauchet, 1985, p. 234). A proposal of this nature was made earlier by Emile Durkheim, for whom secularization involved the transformation of religion, but not its disappearance. Durkheim thought the day would come when societies would have to return to knowing ‘hours of creative effervescence’, during which new ideals would arise that would serve as a guide for humanity. Man would have the need to conserve the memory of these ideals through celebrations that would periodically revitalize their fruits (Durkheim, 1982, p. 398). In fact, in the introduction to The Elemental Forms of the Religious Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 19

Life, Durkheim points out that rituals are representations that express collective realities, ways of acting that are born in the heart of assembled groups and destined to arouse, maintain or renew certain mental states in these groups (Durkheim, 1982, p. 38). For Durkheim, rituals are manifestations that signify a rupture with daily life, reinforce feelings of collective belonging, and provide individuals with a feeling of order. Their efficacy, moreover, resides in the capacity to produce collective mental states derived from the state of group assembly. Therefore, rituals are basically means through which the social group is periodically reaffirmed (Durkheim, 1982, p. 585). Furthermore, in Durkheim’s opinion, a society only exists when there is a need to feed and strengthen collective feelings at regular intervals (Durkheim, 1982, p. 397). Thus, it is quite surprising that Durkheim would not realize that sports, as a public ritual, could also produce ‘hours of collective effervescence’. Perhaps his omission was due to the slow and weak development of football in France, in contrast to other European countries (King, 2003). Durkheim’s secular ritual proposals have received numerous criticisms related to questions such as the lack of empirical evidence to back them up, the underlying concept of integration, the ambiguity of the concept of secular ritual, or not giving enough importance to the existing social divisions and tensions in the daily life of contemporary societies. However, these criticisms do not deny the possibility of integration based on ritual and consensus about common values, and they point out that, in present-day societies, rituals perform a large variety of functions, and their analysis is not simple. In this context, during recent years various authors have identified similarities between the different rituals involved in a football match and those of festive and religious celebrations (Bromberger et al., 1995; Auge, 1999; Bromberger, 2000). These authors have highlighted the way football has taken on many of the elements of traditional rituals (festive and religious), trans- ferring the aura of the sacred to its objects, actors and symbols, and becoming a type of civil liturgy. From this perspective, football can be seen as a drama represented by 22 celebrants in the sacred enclosure of a stadium in front of the attentive and participative gaze of thousands of fans whose decisive point is the goal, the true detonator of collective enthusiasm and catharsis. A ritual can be defined as ‘a set of formalized, expressive acts, carriers of a symbolic dimension, with a specific time-space configuration, characterized by the access to a series of objects, certain systems of behaviour and specific language, and certain emblematic signs, whose codified meaning is one of the common goods of a group’ (Segalen, 2005, p. 30). 20 Spanish Football and Social Change

According to this definition, a ritual can consist of four dimensions: a) a collective dimension, as the ritual is a source of meaning for those who share it, and it is one of the main moments when a community joins together and behaves as such; b) a time-space dimension that is specified in the place where the ritual takes place, as well as the distribution of the public in it and the breaks and discontinuities it introduces in the organization of collective life; c) a symbolic dimension, as the ritual is the creator of meaning: it organizes disorder, gives meaning to the accidental and incomprehensible, and provides the social actors with ways to dominate time and social relations; and finally, d) a metaphorical dimension, as a ritual is a representation of the moral order and represents a social ideal. The following lines examine the degree to which these four dimensions are present in the experience of football in Spain. The analysis is based on an interpretation of some of the data presented in the first section of this chapter, as well as on additional empirical materials and reflections. Regarding its collective dimension, the first thing that should be highlighted is the high level of interest in football in Spanish society. As the previous section pointed out, 54.3 per cent of Spanish adults state that they are interested in this sport, a much higher percentage than what is obtained by the other sport modalities. Football is, moreover, the sport that mobilizes the population to a greater degree: 54.9 per cent of those who regularly attend sport events (22.5 per cent of the adult Spanish population) have bought a ticket to attend a football match during the past year, a percentage that triples the figure for its closest follower, basketball. However, where the collective dimension of Spanish football is truly reflected is in the audience rates of televised broadcasts and programmes. According to the data examined in the previous section, 40.7 per cent of Spaniards over the age of 15 see all or almost all of the football matches broadcast on television. The media – especially television – have turned football matches into a ritual with millions of participants. Every week fans meet in their homes or in public places looking for a dose of collective emotion and enthusiasm. The broad reach provided by the television broadcast con- verts football into a strong organizer of day-to-day life for individuals. It is not surprising, therefore, that in a survey carried out in a sample of Spaniards interested in football, 95 per cent consider it to be the main topic of conversation for Spanish people, 87 per cent as a way to make friends and integrate better in society, and 69 per cent as an aid to blending different social and cultural identities (LFP, 2003). Thus, football has become a space for social participation and emotional exchange Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 21 that provides structure and cohesion, creating meaning for those who share it (Sonntag, 2008). It is one of the main moments when the group gets together and manifests itself as a group, developing an intense corporal and sensorial participation and expressing a feeling of communitas (Turner, 1988) that ‘institutes a true anti-structure, tolerated within certain limits by public authorities, who close their eyes to excessive celebrations, the interruption of traffic circulation, and horn honking at night’ (Segalen, 2005, p. 85). However, as in many other sports, football is also an activity with a strong potential for creating meaning, as it provides frameworks and schemas with which individuals try to dominate socio-temporal relations. In Spanish society, one of the axes that most frequently contributes to this meaning is the symbolic dimension of the football clubs. As pointed out above, they quickly became an embodiment of the cities and regions that contain them, in a sort of extension of local cultures, which turned a league competition into a symbolic space of identitary confrontation. Thanks to the strong link established early on between place (city or region) and football clubs, they developed a strong capacity for symbolization that reaches almost seven of every ten Spanish adults: 66.8 per cent of the population identifies (regardless of whether they are interested in football or not) with a football team. The club’s symbolic potential also produces a strong emblematic capacity that explains ritualistic behaviours such as travelling to attend football matches, buying objects that symbolize the club, singing chants and slogans, and the development of other types of ritual creations. The data obtained from a survey (CIS, 2007), which the third chapter of this book will analyse in depth, show that, in addition to behaviours such as watching matches on television or attending games at the stadium, the Spanish population that identifies with a football team travels to other cities to see their team play (in 15.3 per cent of cases), has flags, shields and other team objects in their home (42 per cent) and usually buys clothes and personal-use items featuring the team’s emblem (24.2 per cent). All of this is related to the social efficacyy that Segalen (2005, p. 31) attributes to the ritual’s capacity to create meaning, and it clearly shows that the football club is a total symbol for its fans. It is a symbol with a high level of hermeneutic plasticity, on which individuals project images and ideas, based on their own socialization, trajectory, birthplace and social context (Bromberger et al., 1995). At the beginning of this section, football’s capacity to provide fans with a break from the rhythm of daily life was pointed out. This break takes place in a specific space (the football stadium), based on planning 22 Spanish Football and Social Change events celebrated periodically in a regular cycle (the calendar of Spanish or European competitions), and within a differentiated sequential framework that establishes an internal rhythmic pattern (the league rounds, for example). It is not surprising, therefore, that football stadiums have often been defined as new cathedrals, a parallelism that should not be interpreted as a mere metaphor, considering the emotions and feelings they arouse in the fans. The distribution of the fans in the stadium is not random, and it recalls, to a large extent, the arrangement of the different social groups attending the most solemn religious ceremonies. The social hierarchy, the hierarchy of the football universe itself and, finally, the hierarchy based on the fans’ fervour and enthusiasm toward the team define the space taken up in the stadium (Bromberger et al., 1995, p. 320). Along with these spatial similitudes, football presents characteristics that demonstrate its appropriation of a ritualistic time structure in its devel opment and structuring. The league competition, for example, follows a regular and cyclical calendar that reaches its culmination in matches that coincide with the final matches of other competitions, such as the King’s Cup or the Champions League. The sequential framework of the games also evokes the structure of some festive or religious rituals and makes it possible to distinguish between the pre-game, the game and the post-game. In the concentration prior to the match, the players are removed from the influence of their family environments and the media in order to prepare physically and mentally for the match they are about to play, which implies a certain purification ritual that requires effort, renouncement and suffering in order to dominate a skill that allows them to wear the team colours (Mardones, 1994, p. 94). The media offer programs that report on the team line-ups, the expectations of the managers, and the declarations of the protagonists, all of which contribute to creating a pre-match emotional state. The fans who plan to attend the match in vivo go to the stadium, forming multitudinous flows of people parading through its surroundings. Once there, demonstrations of support develop in a more or less gradual way: the fans exhibit their flags and posters; they sing chants to emotionally prepare themselves for the match and cheer their team on; and they get angry, sad or excited depending on the performance offered. The high point is the goal, celebrated with a carefully codified emotional intensity that continues in the stands, where the fans are bursting with joy, producing an authentic collective communion, a state of collective effervescence in which the group is supported and the social link is Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 23 reinforced. Thus, football is a sort of ‘anti-structure’, liberated from the common hierarchies that govern social life (Turner, 1988). Football’s appropriation of components corresponding to rituals is also appreciated in its metaphoric dimension, an aspect Robert Bellah and col- leagues referred to when talking about North American baseball (Bellah et al., 1991, p. 38). From this perspective, football can be considered a representation of the moral order of a society, in which a system of rules, a code of honour, team discipline and sense of fraternity materialize when facing common problems under the same team colours (Ehrenberg, 1991). A survey carried out in 2003 by request of the Professional Football League provides evidence of this. According to this source, 58 per cent of the parents who have children of an age to practise a sport consider football to be their favourite sport, far ahead of basketball’s 12 per cent (LFP, 2003). According to the same survey, 69 per cent of those interviewed considered that football contributes to their development, while 66 per cent defined it as one of young people’s greatest entertainments. These data fit those from a recent survey by the Adecco company, titled What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up (Adecco, 2013), in which a sample of 1000 boys and girls (between four and 16 years old) were asked what profession they wanted to have in the future. The profession most frequently cited by the boys was that of footballer (26.7 per cent), followed by being a member of the State security forces, such as a police officer, firefighter or member of the military (5.6 per cent). Among the girls, the professions most frequently chosen were teacher (23.1 per cent), veterinarian (10.7 per cent) and doctor (7.5 per cent). All of this shows, on the one hand, that football is a true ideal for boys, and on the other, that it is an ideal with some strong gender connotations, an aspect that will be thoroughly studied in the seventh chapter of this book. While the boys look for recognition, the girls choose professions related to helping others. In any case, what these data clearly reveal is the strong permanence of the sport ideal as a metaphor that exalts public recognition of moral norms and collective projects. The conclusion must be drawn, therefore, that in spite of the commodification it has experienced in recent years, football continues to represent a series of social ideals that make it something more than a mere leisure activity.

Conclusions

With a percentage of 54.3 per cent, football is the sport that most interests Spaniards, and this interest is displayed in numerous conversations in daily life. Thus, football has become a powerful fuel for the collective 24 Spanish Football and Social Change interaction among Spaniards. It represents a dialectic moment in the time–space order that occupies a central position in the organization of the social lives of many people, as it implies a break from the daily routine due to a series of events that are celebrated periodically and within a regular cycle (the season calendar). Some differences among the distinct social groups regarding their interest in football have to do with sex, age, educational level and socioeconomic position. The data related to football as a sport-physical practice have also shown its supremacy in Spanish society. Football is practised by more people than any other sport, both as a popular practice and as a federated practice. In the latter case, its presence is more than twice that obtained by the second sport in terms of federated licences (855,987 football licences compared to 400,153 for basketball). Football remains the main sport practised by Spaniards, in spite of the emergence of numerous sport modalities registered in Spanish society in the past three decades. As a popular practice of a recreational nature, 18 per cent of the population that practises a sport plays football. Nonetheless, the differences among the diverse social groups related to the practice of football are greater than those related to the interest in this sport. Again, sex, age, educational level and socioeconomic position are responsible for the differences among the Spanish population. In all, just over thirteen million people attended first and second division football stadiums during the 2013–14 season, a number that shows the convening power of football. However, this number is easily surpassed by the television audience of only one match if the national team is playing, or if the match is between the two giants of Spanish football, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, the two clubs that lead the worldwide ranking of clubs with the highest incomes (Deloitte, 2012). Football constitutes, by a large difference, the main content of television sport programming (González-Ramallal, 2004), and broadcasts of matches dominate the ranking of the most-viewed television programmes in the past decade. Football’s leading role in the media, however, is not limited to television. Four of the nine most widely read newspapers in Spain are papers with football content. Spanish football has become one of the spectacles with the greatest social following and economic importance. This chapter has also highlighted the importance of football as a space for collective identification, by showing that two-thirds of the Spanish population (66.8 per cent) identify with a football team. This percentage even exceeds the interest in football (54.3 per cent) and it shows football clubs’ enormous potential for symbolic affiliation as a sort of ‘reserve’ of collective identification that does not seem to be Spaniards’ Secular Ritual 25 affected by the social and economic transformations of football in the past 15 years. This is the case because Spanish football clubs continue to base a large part of their membership potential on their capacity for symbolization, due to the link they establish with the place (city or region) where they are located. This capacity for territorial representation maintains the league competition as a space for identitary confrontation, as the writer Vázquez-Montalbán suggested (2005) when referring to rivalries between Spanish clubs. The predominance of football as a space for collective identification is clearly demonstrated by the fact that it even surpasses the rate of identification with political parties, which some surveys in Spain place at between 48.6 per cent and 55.4 per cent (Rico, 2010, p. 150). This chapter, however, has not been limited to presenting the indicators that show the supremacy of football in the leisure habits of Spaniards. The second part of the chapter has gone beyond the analysis of quantitative data to carry out an interpretation of the role of football in Spanish society, considering it as a characteristic ritual of a society completely engaged in late modernity. Its condition as a secular ritual could also be attributed to football in other western societies; however, in the case of Spain, this situation is strengthened by the social supremacy of this sport, as pointed out in the first part of the chapter. An analysis of the four dimensions in which the characteristics of a secular ritual can be identified – the collective, the symbolic, the time– space and the metaphorical dimensions – has shown the existence of a large number of similarities between football and festive and religious rituals. Among them, some can be highlighted, such as its transformation into a collective space of social participation and emotional exchange that acts as a cohesive element, its configuration as a symbol of strong hermeneutic plasticityy that produces feelings of identification, its time–space specification, which personifies a way of understanding life and its social norms. Football summarizes and highlights values that exemplify the most outstanding components of a society, giving meaning to us and allowing its celebration and self-proclamation. Thus, the football encounter produces ‘hours of collective effervescence’ (Durkheim, 1982) and that sense of communitas (Turner, 1988) that seem to have been eliminated from the daily life of late-modern societies. It produces an emotional intensification, a transformation of sociability, and feelings of cohesion and solidarity that show the need to take its role in modern societies seriously, as the ritual forms allow the expression of those values and emotions that do not find expressive channels in the domestic or work world. 26 Spanish Football and Social Change

From this perspective, the development of modernity would not necessarily entail the extinction of all symbolic and ritual activity. Instead of de-ritualization, it would be necessary to talk about a ‘shift in the field of the ritual’, where rituals have moved, predominantly, from the heart of society to its borders (Segalen, 2005, p. 36). Thus, rituals can be found in the leisure and sport setting, and football is a clear example of this. Therefore, it can be said that an activity such as football has been gradually restructured based on transferences and imitations of religious rituals and traditional celebrations, but without necessarily being a functional substitute for them, as current societies are complicated and plural. Moreover, football presents itself as a ritual that is especially structured to express the group identitary conscience and celebrate and reinforce a sense of belonging. Nevertheless, it is not a system of beliefs or a doctrinal system. Instead, football shows the hegemonic values of our society, the identities that the population shares or wants to share: competiveness, and the role of chance, injustice and betrayal in individual and collective life (Bromberger, 2000, p. 274). This chapter has presented an analysis of the position of football in Spanish society. The data have shown its supremacy in sport and leisure habits and its role as a social ritual, but they have left other questions open, such as: when and how did football reach such an important position in the sport and leisure habits of Spanish society? What factors allowed it to reach this position, and what aspects contribute to maintaining its hegemonic condition? These questions will be answered in the next chapter.

Note

1. The question included in the questionnaire from the aforementioned survey reads: ‘Regardless of your level of interest in football, do you feel close to or sympathetic toward a particular football team?’ 2 Historical Configuration

Football was brought to Spain at the end of the 19th century following the path of British economic expansion. Records show that it was first played in 1872, with its introduction being attributed to British workers in mining companies in Huelva. In the last decade of the 19th century, football began to be played in Bilbao and San Sebastian. In this context, big clubs, which still exist today, were established through a joint effort between Spaniards and foreigners: Athletic de Bilbao in 1898, FC Barcelona in 1899, Real Madrid in 1902 and Atlético de Madrid in 1903. These were the first stages of a sport whose competitive context, in little more than a quarter of a century, would be organized at the national level, with the consolidation of the Spanish Championship (1903), the adoption of the First Regulations in professional football (1926) and the creation of the League (1928). As pointed out in the previous chapter, the purpose of this one is to show the historical process through which football reached a predominant position in Spanish society. Based on this objective, this chapter presents an analysis of the development of Spanish football from its birth at the beginning of the 20th century, when football was organized at a regional level, to present-day football, which reflects the Spain created after the arrival of democracy in the last quarter of the 20th century. It is an historical tour that highlights the basic factors that have marked the evolution of Spanish football, as well as some of its most significant milestones. It is not, however, an exhaustive study of the historical development of Spanish football, which would require far more than a single chapter. This chapter is divided into three main parts, followed by a final section with conclusions. First, reference is made to the period between the birth of Spanish football at the end of the 19th century and the outbreak

27 28 Spanish Football and Social Change of the Civil War in 1936. The second part is dedicated to the period of General Franco’s dictatorship (1939–75) and the third part focuses on the ups and downs of Spanish football from the re-establishment of democracy to the present day.

Spanish football in the first third of the 20th century

The practice of sport began to develop in Spain between the years 1880 and 1890 in the context of the intense social transformation the country was experiencing at the time. Although the first bill establishing obligatory physical education in schools dates from 1879, the state did not play a leading role in promoting sport, and the urban civil society ultimately laid the foundation for the development of Spanish sport (Domínguez, 2011, p. 62). Football, like other sport modalities, began to be adopted by Spaniards at the end of the 19th century, after various decades when it was exclusively practised by British expatriates linked to industrial or maritime activities and Spanish young people who had begun to play it while travelling in the United Kingdom (Polo, 1986; Pujadas and Santacana, 2001). The growing importance of football as a popular spectacle gave rise to the appearance of a specialized sport press and a progressive increase in the space dedicated to sports in the news media (Castañón, 1993, p. 45; Quiroga, 2013, p. 468). From the beginning, football received rapid and widespread acceptance from numerous social groups that had previously been excluded from these types of activities: the middle classes, employees and manual workers (Domínguez, 2011, p. 81). In this way, football spread throughout the entire national territory, giving rise to many local and regional tournaments, even though the Spanish Football Federation was not created until 1909. In fact, in early 1903 the first Spanish Championship was played, promoted by Real Madrid’s manager, Padrós, who tried to consolidate the tournament as an annual competition that would bring together the different regional champions in Madrid. He managed to get the support of King Alfonso XIII, who donated a trophy, giving birth to the King’s Cup (Copa del Rey). There were two main elements that determined the development of football during this period: on the one hand, the identitary potential of the clubs that were being created throughout the country and the strong symbolism acquired by the Spanish national team after obtaining the Silver Medal in the Antwerp Olympic Games in 1920; and on the other, the changes and transformations that began to occur after the Historical Configuration 29 adoption of professionalism in 1926 and the inauguration of the League Championship in 1929.

Regional and national identities in Spanish football Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, interest in football increased dramatically in the entire country, and the numbers of spectators in the stadiums grew steadily. At the end of the 1920s, there were 46 football fields with a capacity of more than 8,000, 74 per cent of which came under the jurisdiction of the federations of Catalonia, the Basque Country, Asturias and Madrid (Bahamonde, 2002). The 16 first-division Catalan clubs had almost 34,000 members, which clearly shows football’s extraordinary strength and presence in the social fab- ric at that time (Bahamonde, 2011, p. 100). In 1930, in cities such as Madrid or Barcelona about 100,000 people could attend at least one football match per season, which represented a little more than ten per cent of the population (Bahamonde, 2011, p. 114). Football was already the main spectacle of the masses, and its audience went beyond the limits of the middle classes. To a large degree, part of the rise of football was based on the progressive adoption of territorial symbolism by the clubs. The clubs became identitary referents for a society that saw them as a way to express their feelings of belonging to a community. This tendency was exacerbated by the fact that in most large Spanish cities two football clubs emerged, which, over time, became staunch rivals, intensifying the feelings of identification with each club. The rivalries at the beginning of the 20th century, therefore, did not arise from political confrontations or social stratification processes; instead, they were a reflection of representation and integration mechanisms in the new urban dynamics that were developing in Spanish society at the time (Domínguez, 2011, p. 85). However, the high level of territorial symbolism acquired by the clubs provided the matches with a seriousness and a sense of transcendence that were previously unimaginable. The actions of the sport press contributed to this, as they took the side of one club or another, promoting the symbolic dimension and broadening the social interest in football. Athletic de Bilbao dominated Spanish football during the first decade of the 20th century and in the years prior to the Civil War. From its origins, the image of Athletic de Bilbao was based on the idea of a club that represented the city and its surrounding area. This image was strengthened by the executive committee’s decision in 1919 to hire only Basque players (Shaw, 1987, p. 21). Athletic de Bilbao, along with other Basque clubs, supported Basque autonomy. With the outbreak 30 Spanish Football and Social Change of the Civil War, it became a member of the Euzkadi national team, making its first appearance in Paris in April and playing matches in Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union and Norway. Later, when the Basque country had been invaded by the nacionales (rebel military), the team moved to Mexico where it played in the National League before dissolving (Shaw, 1987, p. 22). In Catalonia, in spite of having been founded by a Swiss man, Hans Gamper, FC Barcelona soon became a symbol of Catalanism, unlike its city rival, RCD Espanyol, which was regarded by most Barça supporters as a centralist team. With these identity characteristics, it is not surprising that matches between these two teams have been real local battles since the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the greatest clashes were produced by the centralist bias of some political decisions and policies. The symbolism of FC Barcelona increased during the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera, who came to power in 1923, marking the beginning of a military dictatorship that would foreshadow the later Francoist period. Primo de Rivera eliminated Catalan from the public sphere and prohibited the senyera (the Catalan flag). The senyera was replaced during public demonstrations by the Barça flag, thus generating a symbolic fusion of the two flags that would be repeated during the dictatorship of General Franco. The persecution of Catalan symbols by the Primo de Rivera regime clashed with the social reality of an entity that found itself in a golden age (Pujadas and Santacana, 1999, p. 36). This could be seen in the club’s 25th anniversary celebration in 1924, an occasion that the club took advantage of by publicly declaring its relationship with Catalanism. An incident that had a strong impact during this period occurred in June 1925 when, after some whistling and boo- ing by fans during the Spanish national anthem, the military governor closed the old FC Barcelona stadium, Les Corts, for six months (Colomé, 1999, p. 172). As in the case of Athletic de Bilbao, many FC Barcelona players joined the fight against the insurgent military in 1936, and in April 1937 the club went on tour around Mexico (Shaw, 1987, p. 23). During this period, Basque clubs, especially Athletic de Bilbao, dominated Spanish football. Their playing style, direct and with a strong physical component, was admired throughout the country. In fact, their style became the origin of the furia española (Spanish fury) stereotype, a myth that arose due to the Silver Medal obtained by the national team in the Olympic Games held in Antwerp in 1920. This was the first national football team formed to represent the country in an international competition (Martialay, 2000; Díaz-Noci, 2000). The expression ‘Spanish fury’ was first used by the French press and later by the Flemish Historical Configuration 31 and Dutch press, to refer to the brusque and unsophisticated way the Spaniards played. This brutality was a characteristic that was not just related to football. It also reflected a constant trait of the Spanish national identity ever since the sacking of Antwerp, led by Flemish regiments, in 1576 (Quiroga, 2013, p. 469). Attributing a high level of ferocity to the Spanish national team was merely a way of projecting some of the myths of Spain’s leyenda negra (black legend) on to its style of playing football. However, the Spanish press soon transformed these negative considerations into a positive characteristic of Spanish football (Salazar, 1996, p. 26). Brusqueness and savageness were reinterpreted as courage and virility in some of the first testimonies to or attempts to explain the success of the Spanish team at the Antwerp Olympics. This was evident in the book Las gestas españolas en el football olímpico de Amberes (Spanish Feats in Olympic Football at Antwerp), published in 1920 by the journalist and national coach Manuel de Castro, and in another book titled Furia española: de la Olimpiada de Amberes a la de París (Spanish Fury: from the Antwerp Olympics to Paris), published in 1924 by the journalist Alberto Martín, who used the pseudonym Juan Deportista. For the latter, the fury was a display of ‘ferocity and self-respect’ that characterized the game of some Spaniards who had injected an enormous dose of passion into a game invented by the English (Martín, 1924, p. 16). The concept of the Spanish fury firmly took root in public opinion due to its ability to fit stereotypes presenting Spaniards as ‘passionate, rash, hot-blooded and very macho’, which had been consolidated in the Spanish imagination since the end of the 19th century (Quiroga, 2013, p. 472). On the other hand, it was not compatible with the new modern model of healthy and athletic masculinity, which made progress after the First World War in the majority of European countries (Uría, 2008). Perhaps for this reason, in spite of the greater politicization of sports during the Second Republic, the Spanish fury discourse did not experience great modifications during this period.

The adoption of professionalism and the creation of a national competitive context The professionalization of Spanish football was a slow process that revolved around two dates: 1912, when matches became paid-for events, after the old O’Donnell pitch owned by Real Madrid was converted into an enclosure; and 1926, when after an 11-year period the First Regulations for Professional Football were passed. This meant the final adoption of professionalism instead of an amateur model. This 32 Spanish Football and Social Change model, which was reviewed in 1930, would keep its spirit alive until the 1960s. The same evolution took place in other European countries after the acceptance of professionalism by FIFA at the Rome Congress in 1926. This professionalization process was going to have to fulfil certain conditions, such as an increasing number of spectators and club members. Football, therefore, became yet another element in Spain’s modernization process. Industrialization and the division of labour generated new needs, some of them related to entertainment. Football, along with other alternatives, met this increasing demand for leisure activities. It developed in industrial and coastal regions: in 1926 there were 705 teams in Spain, organized in 15 regional federations with 14,100 players under the federations’ rules. Of these teams, 57 per cent of them were based in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Asturias (Bahamonde, 2000, p. 80), confirming the thesis that football is a typical sport in urban industrial areas. This phenomenon has been called determinism of origins; that is, football came to Spain through seaports and grew roots in open-minded cities that were used to exchanging ideas and accepting novelties (Bahamonde, 2000, p. 80). The adoption of professionalism hastened the reform of competitions, which until then had taken place at a regional level. The consequent reduction in the number of matches was not enough to finance the expenses derived from professionalization. Thus, professionalization further accelerated reform at the regional level, where competitions had taken place until then, as it produced an increase in expenses that could only be compensated for by changing from regional to national competition. Both 1927 and 1928 were relevant years for the future of Spanish football, as organizational structures and regulations for national competitions were established and have remained almost unchanged until the present day. Amid difficulties and tensions, the League started on 10 February 1929. The expectation created by the previous debates meant that football pitches were crowded with people: football was modernizing and becoming part of popular culture. Before then, and for the period of a year, two leagues had been played at the same time, but they finally saw the need to reach an agreement, as neither of the leagues was achieving the economic results they had initially envisaged. During the first seasons, clubs had to face new expenses and needs stemming from the professionalization process. Between 1931 and 1936, in the ordinary and extraordinary assemblies of the Spanish Football Federation, there was a debate about the possible re-orientation of the League and the future of regional championships. Many clubs Historical Configuration 33 were doubtful about the feasibility of the League Championship and demanded its re-organization into regional championships. The Catalan Federation was in favour of preserving and giving greater autonomy to regional championships, which, in the case of Catalonia, were popular among fans. On the other hand, Real Madrid was one of the most passionate defenders of a National League, due to its central geographical location and the radial structure of the Spanish railway network. In May 1936, before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the League had been completely consolidated, although regional championships were still being held in Catalonia, the Basque Country and some other regions in Spain, despite the opposition of Real Madrid.

The Francoist dictatorship period

Toward the end of the Civil War, in the last few months of 1938, a weekly sports newspaper called Marca was first published. Through it, the ideological and organizational principles that were going to rule Spanish society as a whole, and football in particular, were clearly set out. The journalist Miquelarena continually pointed out in this publication the need for ‘a turning point in the conception of football to make it compatible with the new values of the State’. For Miquelarena, ‘football had been, during the Second Republic, a red orgy of the lowest and vilest regional passions’ (Bahamonde, 2000, p. 185). After the end of the Civil War, sport became part of the state’s machinery. For the first time, there was a radical shift in the conception of sport, which became a political tool at the service of the totalitarian state (Santacana, 2011, p. 206). Sport was subordinated to the state and impregnated with fascist terminology. The ideas giving meaning to sport were obedience, submission and military discipline. The National Board for Sport depended on the regime’s political party, the Falange Española Tradicional y de la JONS. The Royal Spanish Football Federation, which had been founded and managed by the clubs since its creation in 1902, had to get used to being a puppet institution. In this context, football clubs lost their private status and their self-management capacity. Members became mere season-ticket holders of a sports event. Football finally adjusted its rules to the development of the political regime, and only in the last period of Franco’s dictatorship could clubs start to reassert their influence (Shaw, 1987, p. 38). In spite of all these changes – which surprised no one because they were common in many other areas of political and social life – football was one of the main components of what some have called the ‘escapism culture’ 34 Spanish Football and Social Change

(Carr and Fusi, 1980). This ‘escapism culture’, which was forged during the Francoist era, took on a special meaning in the situation of repression, lack of freedom and economic misery the country faced (Shaw, 1987, p. 101). In addition to football and bullfights, cinema, theatre and popular literature were also part of this culture of ‘escaping from the immediate reality’ (Carr and Fusi, 1980, p. 118). In fact, during the dictatorship, bullfights were the second most popular event, and they took on special importance in the summer periods, when they were programmed as popular entertainment that kept the population distracted once the football season had ended. One of the keys to the success of football is that it was the only sport accessible to the working classes in a context where sports installations were scarce. The contrast between the enormous popularity of football and the dramatic situation of the existing infrastructures for its practice was one of the most significant traits of Spanish sports during the Franco period (Shaw, 1987, p. 29). Spanish children played football in the streets, squares or any other public spaces, and from early ages they joined the lists of followers of the different clubs. Street practice progressively disappeared with the transition to adulthood, but by that time they had already become fervent fans who went to see their team play every Sunday evening. They also had access to their favourite sport during the week: the sport press allowed them to be completely informed about current football news long before television appeared and turned it into one of its main subjects. Compared to other aspects of Spanish life, football soon recovered financially and regained its supporters from before the Civil War. In fact, a few years after the end of the Civil War, there was already a strong popular demand to initiate the League and Cup competition matches again. In a context of economic woes, the alternatives for diversion were scarce, but the need for distraction was high. In only two seasons, the levels of membership and spectators of the Republican period were reached. Football then became a psychological outlet, a way to compensate for a difficult life. It was in the 1940s that the popularity of football increased dramatically. This change was influenced by the fact that no club dominated the competitive scene. This situation changed, however, in the second half of the 1950s with Real Madrid’s streak of victories in Europe. Some authors estimate that the two main stadiums in Madrid (Chamartín stadium and the Metropolitano stadium, belonging to Real Madrid and Atlético Aviación, respectively), with space for 30,000 spectators, were usually filled to capacity, a situation that also occurred in other Spanish cities Historical Configuration 35

(Shaw, 1987, p. 103). The increase in the popularity of football produced a rise in the number of club members, an increase in the amount of money spent on football pools, and a greater presence of football broadcasts and programmes on the radio. In one decade, the 1940s, the radio became an accessible household appliance, and at the midpoint of the 20th century it was present in all Spanish homes. The country’s economic and technological underdevelopment caused the arrival of television to be delayed until 1956, and direct broadcasts of football matches did not occur regularly until 1961. At that time, football’s popularity continued to grow, fostered by the collective euphoria unleashed by the strong performance of the Spanish national team at the World Cup in Brazil in 1950 – where it obtained a highly celebrated victory over England – and Real Madrid’s five consecutive victories in the first five editions of the Champions League, known at the time as the European Cup, as well as the arrival of big football stars of the epoch, such as Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskas and Ladislao Kubala, to the main Spanish clubs. Television had a great impact on the increase in popularity of Spanish football. To the sequence where an individual read information in the press prior to a match, listened to it later on the radio, read its account in the press, and then relived it visually in No-Do,1 the televised broadcast of matches, was added. Television not only increased the audience and popularity of football in Spain, but it also increased the Franco regime’s opportunities to transmit its moral and patriotic discourse to Spaniards (Quiroga, 2013, p. 479). Before the arrival of television, there were already suspicions about the regime’s political use of the national team. An example was when the regime installed large screens in the main Spanish cities that allowed large crowds of fans to watch the Spanish team’s matches two days after they were held (Shaw, 1987, p. 104). Nonetheless, it must be said that football as entertainment for the masses was not a creation of Franco. In other European countries after the Second World War, there was also a football boom that had a soothing effect on collective wounds. Spain was becoming passionate about football, but the truth is that the Franco regime did nothing special to make football become a social anaesthetic. It only became aware of football’s distraction potential and, therefore, its possible political use when it was already an established phenomenon (Shaw, 1987, p. 110; Bahamonde, 2000, p. 196). In fact, the regime did little to increase football’s popularity, as it could not even help the clubs economically or contribute to building new stadiums. However, the case of television is different. The numerous football broadcasts on Spanish Television – the only television channel that 36 Spanish Football and Social Change existed in the country and that, furthermore, was under the control of the Ministry of Information and Tourism – represent a situation where the regime took the initiative. However, it is also true that the regime could respond – as is commonly done to justify television that offers an ‘escape culture’ type of programming – that the abundant football programming merely responded to satisfying a demand.

The Spanish national team Once the Civil War had ended, Franco’s authorities tried to imbue the Spanish national team with fascist values. The national team had to change their red shirts for blue ones, and the players were asked to line up, saluting in the fascist way and singing the anthem of the Falange Española Tradicional y de la JONS – the regime’s political party – before matches. During the early years of the regime, Spain only played friendly matches against countries such as Germany, Italy, France or Portugal. Before these matches, discourses about the fascist brotherhood and anti-communist fight left no doubt about where General Franco’s sympathies lay regarding the disputing parties in the Second World War. The international matches of the Spanish national team were also more than mere sporting events: there was an attempt to turn them into ceremonies of patriotism and veneration of the Franco regime’s New State (González Aja, 2002, p. 183). After the fall of the Third Reich, however, the presence of members of the Spanish Falange in government posts began to diminish, and changes were made that showed an intention to distance the country from its former Italian and German allies. The fascist salute at the beginning of the matches stopped being obligatory in 1945, and red was once again the colour of the Spanish national team’s shirt (Shaw, 1987, p. 84). However, the discourse in the media continued to be extremely patriotic throughout the entire dictatorship, especially when the national team played an international match. The exaltation of the national team as the representative of the country was quite predictable, although somewhat surprising, for example, when it was said that the players were ‘eleven chosen to defend the name of Spain’ or they were presented as defenders of ‘Spain’s cause’ (Sanz, 2012, p. 423). The regime always felt comfortable with the myth of the Spanish fury, as it confirmed the existence of certain specifically Hispanic racial qualities, and it fitted the discourse of regeneration promoted by the Francoist authorities. The successes and victories of the Spanish national team were attributed to ‘the energy of the race’ or to the ‘Spanish character and temperament’, all traits linked to the myth of the Spanish Historical Configuration 37 fury. Likewise, if the sporting results were not good, the recovery of the spirit of the Spanish fury was promoted. There were also frequent references made to the capacity of the ‘Spanish temperament’ to improvise and surprise, as the emblematic journalist of Spanish National Radio, Matías Prats, often mentioned (Fernández, 1997, p. 69). One of the most memorable moments in the history of Spanish football occurred during the World Cup in Brazil in 1950. After beating Chile (2–0) and the United States (3–1), the national team beat England thanks to an historic goal by Telmo Zarra, which allowed it to go on to the next phase. The match was broadcast by radio, and the goal by Zarra was immortalized by the journalist Matías Prats. The Falangist newspaper Marca interpreted this victory as ‘a splendid demonstration to the whole world that the new Spain born from that bloody conflict has recovered the traditional Hispanic virtues of passion, aggression, fury, virility and impetuosity’ (Marca, 2 July 1950). One day later, the same newspaper published declarations made by Armando Muñoz Calero, President of the Spanish Football Federation. He lashed out at those who had dared to question the Spanish team’s chances for success: ‘[our players] for having this faith and being full of the current Spanish patriotic feeling, have known how to rise above all the envious people. And their only thought was that there is a Spain with the best Caudillo in the world’ (Marca, 3 July 1950). Perhaps the clearest political episode from the Franco period was the victory over the Soviet Union in the 1964 UEFA European Nations’ Cup final. It was a very symbolic victory for a regime whose legitimacy was based on the triumph over communism in the Civil War. Moreover, the match was even more important because four years earlier, in the first edition of the European Nations’ Cup, played in France, Spain was going to play against the Soviet Union in the quarter-finals, but Franco intervened personally to cancel the Spanish participation unless the matches against the Soviet national team were held on neutral soil. The Soviets rejected this demand, and Spain was eliminated from the tournament (González Aja, 2011, p. 343; Ramos, 2013). Spain had another opportunity in 1964; in this edition it not only managed to qualify, but it was also awarded the right to host the tournament. The semi-finals were held in Madrid and Barcelona, and again Spain and the Soviet Union had to face each other, although this time in the final. The regime was fully aware of the propaganda possibilities that this tournament provided through television, with live broadcasts of the matches over Eurovision and Intervision designed to reach the greatest number of spectators (Quiroga, 2013, p. 480). General Franco 38 Spanish Football and Social Change admitted this fact to one of his cousins, who would later include these comments in a book on the dictator: ‘our unity and patriotism were proven to millions and millions of people who watched the great match on television in many parts of the world’ (Salgado-Araujo, 1976, p. 563). The triumph could not have been more opportune for the regime at a time when it was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, which it euphemistically called ‘25 Years of Peace’. The myth of the Spanish fury was part of Spain’s victory in Euro 1964. The victory over the USSR was presented as resulting from the inherent force, guts and prowess of the Spanish. The event matched the legend- ary importance of the ‘feat of Antwerp’, which clearly showed that the silver medal obtained by the national team in the 1920 Olympic Games was still alive in the Spanish memory.

The regime team and the opposition to regime teams With the exception of the victory in Euro 1964, the Spanish team had not been very useful for the regime’s objectives in terms of exterior image, given their poor sports performance. They did not qualify for the World Cups of 1954, 1958, 1970 or 1974, or manage to play a dignified role in the 1962 and 1966 World Cups. In fact, the image of the Spanish national team faded from 1956 on, at the same time that Real Madrid reached its hegemonic position in European club football. The consecutive victories of Real Madrid in the first five editions of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup contributed decisively to improving the image of Franco’s Spain abroad, as pointed out by numerous academics and researchers specializing in the period (Botines, 1975; Shaw, 1987; Bahamonde, 2002; Ball, 2010). This was true not only due to the five con- vincing European Cup victories, but also to the results achieved against their rivals, their playing style, and their capacity to overcome adverse scoreboards. Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskas and Francisco Gento were the main stars on a team whose fame and prestige went beyond Spanish borders. Without meaning to, Real Madrid acquired a strong political symbolism during the Francoist period, to the extent that they came to be considered the regime’s team (González Aja, 2002, p. 198). The government quickly detected that Real Madrid’s victories could be useful to them, on the one hand, to increase the internal cohesion of a society that was going through great economic difficulties and, on the other, to project to the image of a nation of winners, worthy of being invited to return to the international scene (Ball, 2012, p. 117). This is reflected by the words of José Solís, Secretary Minister of the Movement, to the players in October 1959. During a dinner the club offered to its Historical Configuration 39 players and the members of the Luxembourg Jeuneusse d’Esch club after a stunning 5–0 Real Madrid victory, Solís stood up and said:

You have done more than many embassies strewn across God’s country. People who hated us now understand us, thanks to you, because you broke down a lot of walls … Your victories are a true source of pride for all Spaniards, inside and outside of our country. When you go to your dressing rooms at the end of each match, know that all the Spanish people are with you and proudly accompany you in your victories, which set the Spanish standard so high (Bulletin of Real Madrid CF, number 112, 1959; quoted by Shaw, 1987, p. 18).

Nonetheless, some authors have seen Real Madrid as a victim of Francoism itself (Fernández, 1997, p. 93). At the centre of the debate about Real Madrid’s relationship with Franco’s regime was its president during most of the dictatorship: Santiago Bernabéu, who managed the team from 1943 until his death in 1978. It is true that Bernabéu was a Francoist, but it is also true that he had no need to imitate Franco’s methods. On the other hand, although it cannot be proven, it is likely that most of the club’s fans were Francoists. Real Madrid was the team supported by Franco himself and most of his ministers, which made Bernabéu feel proud, as did the idea that the club was the regime’s ambassador (Shaw, 1987, p. 60). Nonetheless, the club did not dominate the Royal Spanish Football Federation, and it was not favoured by the referees. However, Real Madrid was not the only club that acquired a strong political profile during Francoism. The Basque and Catalan clubs, in particular, acquired a high level of regionalist significance, and they even became channels of expression for part of the political opposition to the regime. Apart from the regionalist significance that clubs like Athletic de Bilbao, Real Sociedad de San Sebastián or FC Barcelona had acquired previously, Basques and Catalans mainly adhered to the Republican cause during the Civil War. Consequently, Franco neutralized any institutions that could have a separatist motivation. The Basque and Catalan languages were marginalized, and their use was prohibited in schools and other official institutions. The flags of the Basque Country and Catalonia, the ikurriña and the senyera, respectivelyy, were also banned, along with many other manifestations of regional identification. During the 1940s and 1950s, football clubs – including Athletic de Bilbao, Real Sociedad de San Sebastián and FC Barcelona – were directed by Falangists or local business owners who had declared their loyalty to the Caudillo at the end of the Civil War. However, after two decades of 40 Spanish Football and Social Change institutional convergence with the political regime, football achieved some degree of autonomy (Bahamonde, 2000, p. 186). The managers and members who led the football clubs in the 1960s and 1970s were less tolerant of the centralist arrogance and anti-democratic authoritarianism of the regime, and they were closer to the political and cultural opposition movements that began to develop in regions like Catalonia and the Basque Country. Taking into account the enormous difficulties created by the powerful repressive machinery of the Franco regime, it is not surprising that football stadiums were one of the few places where they could hoist their regional flags, express themselves in their native languages, and express their opposition to a centralist and repressive regime that threatened their regional identities. The Franco regime did not mind that football could serve as a scenario for expressing regional tensions. In fact, as the writer Manuel Vázquez-Montalbán highlighted on many occasions, during Francoism, football was a ‘relief valve’ through which opposition to centralism was channelled (Vázquez-Montalbán, 2005). FC Barcelona, mostly made up of local footballers until the 1960s, started to contract foreign players as a way to assert its rivalry with Real Madrid. Although this new hiring policy did not produce significant sporting results until the mid-1980s, FC Barcelona became the ‘national team’ of Catalonia and was regarded as one of the most important Catalan institutions, both in economic and political terms. The repression in Catalonia after the Civil War had contributed to this special significance. Barça matches in the old Les Corts stadium became powerful nationalist performances, an orderly way for thousands of Catalans to wave their senyeres, sing songs such as Els Segadors and speak in their scorned mother language. The 1960s and 1970s saw the transformation of FC Barcelona into the true catalyst of the nationalistic aspirations of the Catalans. FC Barcelona became the national team of Catalonia. With the presidency of Agustí Montalt (1969–77), the club began an ambitious policy of Catalanization. In 1972, the senyera flew in the stadiums, and Catalan was heard over the megaphones, and one year later the entity recovered its original name, from Club de Fútbol Barcelona to Futbol Club Barcelona (that is, from Castilian to Catalan) The club increased its nationalist orientation at the same time that it increased its capacity to integrate the waves of immigration from other regions of Spain in the 1950s and 1970s.

Football in the restoration of democracy

With the arrival of democracy, football went through a deep transformation of the organizational structures that had been designed by Franco’s Historical Configuration 41 regime. Football federations started a process of democratization, and clubs returned the right to elect their presidents to their members. The National Board of Sport, which had influenced the organization of sport, was abolished. Its disappearance was decisive in dismantling all the pillars that held up the Francoist model of football. After a few years of readjustments, the Superior Sport Council was created, an institution that depended on the Culture Ministry, which would control Spanish sport. The restoration of democracy brought with it the expansion of basic sports and the improvement of infrastructure. The Royal Spanish Football Federation acquired an equivalent functioning to that of its western European counterparts in 1976, and one year later internal democracy was restored in the clubs. The members recovered the right to vote in quadrennial assemblies to elect the president, as long as they had been members for more than three years. The external pressure of the sport press was decisive in achieving quo- tas of democracy that were practically non-existent in the rest of the European countries. Spanish football was becoming democratic, but not to the degree demanded by part of the sport press and the most critical sectors. In 1977 the Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE) was established, a free and independent association created with the purpose of defending the professional interests of footballers. It was an initiative that in the 1960s had received opposition from the clubs and the Spanish Football Federation. The patriotic discourse that had been characteristic of the Spanish national team in the previous period gradually vanished. The resource of the Spanish fury did not disappear, but it diminished noticeably for two main reasons: 1) because it had been discredited due to the Franco regime’s excessive exploitation of it; and 2) because of the rise of the regionalist dimension in Spanish football during the years of transition to democracy. Almost four decades of the imposition of an idea of Spain fused with the Franco regime’s concept of the nation, along with the regime’s loss of political, moral and cultural prestige, directly affected the feeling of national identification of many Spaniards, especially the youngest ones (Quiroga, 2013, p. 484). This general climate had a strong influence on the progressive reduction in reference to the Spanish fury. However, the discrediting of the idea of the Spanish nation was limited by social changes that the regime itself promoted in Spanish society in the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, including the emergence of a mass consumption society, the penetration of television in homes and the arrival of numerous foreign tourists to the country (Sanz, 2012, p. 428). All of 42 Spanish Football and Social Change this also had a great influence on the Spanish population, which learned to distinguish between the ‘sport nation’, represented by Spanish athletes who competed in international tournaments, and the ‘official nation’, represented by official messages and Francoist propaganda. Thus many Spaniards were able to develop a sentimental link with the Spanish nation that was not necessarily accompanied by the political acceptance of Francoism (Sevillano, 2000). On the other hand, during the second half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, Spanish society experienced an increasing number of peripheral nationalist expressions, not only in the Basque Country and Catalonia, but also in other regions such as Galicia, Andalusia and Valencia. This emergence of regional sentiments affected many aspects of social life and was strongly projected on to the world of football. While the rivalry between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona acquired previously unknown proportions, the political significance of the main Basque – Athletic de Bilbao and Real Sociedad – or Catalan – FC Barcelona – clubs continued to grow and became a true outlet for nationalist sentiments. After the death of Franco, the clubs with the greatest regionalist significance made declarations supporting democracy, and they showed that they were in favour of their respective regions acquiring a degree of autonomy from the central government. These demands for regional autonomy were particularly present in the socio-political climate of that time, and they finally took shape in the so-called Estado de las Autonomías (State of Autonomous Communities), the model for territorial organization enacted in the Constitution of 1978, which tried to reconcile the unity of the Spanish nation with the demands for autonomy of the distinct regions, traditionally referred to as Spain’s ‘regional problem’ (Moreno, 1997). The organization of the World Cup in Spain in 1982 was a very important event that served to internationally spread the image of a modern, developed and democratic country. The little attention sociologists and historians have dedicated to this event is surprising, given that it was conceived and developed as ‘a shop window for the new Spanish democracy’ (Simón, 2012). Even before its celebration, it was considered the most important sport event in the recent history of the country. It was the first tournament with a final phase of 24 teams, and it had a budget of a little more than the equivalent of 150 million euros. It was held in 14 cities and managed to attract about one million foreign visitors and about 8,000 journalists, representing both national and international media. Due to the efforts and transformations it produced (financing, remodelling the stadiums, transforming the structures of the Historical Configuration 43

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE [Radio Televisión Española], commercial exploitation of the event), the 1982 World Cup was a turning-point in the recognition of the power of football as a consumer product in Spain (Bodin, 2011, p. 451). Along with the socio-political and economic development of the country in the 1980s and 1990s, the poor sporting performance of the Spanish team in the 1982 World Cup further weakened the patriotic rhetoric of the myth of the Spanish fury. Spain joined the European Economic Community in 1986 and organized the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Democracy had been consolidated, and the country acquired a more modern image that had little room for the Spanish fury discourse. However, as pointed out above, the Spanish fury myth never disappeared completely, at least in football, its last and most important stronghold. In the 1980s and 1990s, reference to the Spanish fury appeared, disappeared and reappeared as a key explanation for the successes or failures of the national team. For example, Spain’s victory over Malta by 12–1 in December 1983 was described in the ABC newspaper by a very significant headline: ‘The Spanish fury returns’ (ABC, 22 December 1983). That same edition stated that the victory against the Maltese had been celebrated all over Spain like a historic deed, like the goal of Zarra that has been referred in the second chapter. A study by Liz Crolley and David Hand about the 1998 World Cup in France revealed that the Spanish press continued to draw on an updated version of the Spanish fury stereotype, based on praising the team itself, underestimating rivals and adopting patriotic stereotypes and symbols (Crolley and Hand, 2002, p. 116). In the 1980s, in a context in which the Spanish fury myth was losing stamina, the bases of a critical-pessimistic discourse began to appear, reaching its maximum expression in the 1990s. In this discourse, there was a mixture of sporting (poor results in international tournaments), identitary-political (regionalist tensions) and psychological (inferiority complex, fear of competition, a feeling of not being lucky) aspects (Llopis-Goig, 2006b). The goal scored for France by Michel Platini against the Spanish goalkeeper Luis Arconada at the end of the 1984 UEFA Euro, the defeat on penalties against Belgium in the 1986 World Cup, or the defeat against Italy in a quarter-final match of the 1994 World Cup unleashed numerous reactions and commentaries by journalists with a clear critical-pessimistic posture. During the 1990s, this discourse acquired greater relevance and presence. To many it seemed obvious that the Spanish national team was condemned to a sort of fatalism that caused it to fall apart – psychologically – in decisive matches or to be 44 Spanish Football and Social Change eliminated from international competitions due to fortuitous factors or refereeing errors. Moreover, these circumstances were accentuated by a supposed ‘lack of patriotism’ (Wert, 2001), where important roles were played by both the regionalist strength of the football clubs and the lack of a true sentiment of national unity (Llopis-Goig, 2009c). While this critical-pessimistic discourse, according to which the Spanish national team was condemned to disappointing the Spanish fans, gained greater relevance, Spanish society continued to change, and the political culture of Spaniards seemed to align more and more with the new model of territorial organization consecrated by the current Constitution: the ‘State of the Autonomous Communities’. The country was becoming decentralized, and it was acquiring a quasi-federal structure that was shown to be the best solution possible for the traditional tensions between the centre and the periphery, Spain’s ‘regional problem’. They were years of democratic euphoria and regionalist elation, and football was not isolated from these tendencies and schools of thought. During the 1980s and 1990s, a plurinational Spain was present in the relations between football and society. The leading roles of Real Madrid (as a symbol of centralism) and FC Barcelona (as a symbol of Catalanism and opposition to centralism) gave way to a more plural and complex scenario. Valencia CF, Deportivo de La Coruña, Athletic de Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Atlético de Madrid, Real Zaragoza and Sevilla FC were beginning to be taken into account in the main Spanish championships and European competitions (González Ramallal, 2003, p. 263). In the 1990s, the identity map of Spanish football witnessed the dismantling of its ‘radial structure’: the identitarian hegemony of the Spanish national team and Real Madrid became the base on which new identities were built (Llopis-Goig, 2006b, 2009c). In the case of Catalans and Basques, some precedents had been set, but in other Autonomous Communities the process was just beginning and had a lot to do with the creation and consolidation of regional television channels and sports publications, as well as the centrifugal logic that characterized the creation of the ‘State of the Autonomous Communities’ (Moreno, 1997). Thus, during the 1980s and 1990s, new identities were activated that made the old ‘radial structure’ of Spanish football vanish. With the creation of the ‘State of the Autonomous Communities’, autonomic feelings increased, and football clubs adopted a regionalist profile, which added complexity to the football map, but did not do away with unitary feelings. Spanish national team matches did not arouse much interest among players and football fans, but they did promote the search for a ‘common identity in the game’, and it produced Historical Configuration 45 a new version of the Spanish fury stereotype. Therefore, other identities were added to the hegemony of the Spanish national team and the centralist role of Real Madrid, weakening the previous model without destroying it completely. During the past few years, however, Spanish football has witnessed a series of events and transformations that have substantially altered the fans’ positions and their identification with the clubs and the national team. Two things have contributed to this: 1) the protagonist role that Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have acquired in the national and international football panorama; and 2) the admiration and support that the national football team has received from Spanish society as a result of their recent victories in the most important international competitions. Both topics will be examined later in this book (in the third and fourth chapters, respectively), so that a few lines will suffice to conclude this chapter and highlight the main lines in the evolution of Spanish football in the past decade. Regarding the former, according to a study carried out by the Deloitte company every year, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are the two clubs with the highest incomes in the world, with an annual revenue of 479.5 million euros in the case of Real Madrid, and 450.7 euros in the case of FC Barcelona (Deloitte, 2012). This economic supremacy is largely due – although not entirely – to the fact that in Spain the clubs negotiate their audio-visual rights with the mass media individually, making it possible for both teams to contract the best footballers and coaches in the world and, therefore, increase their athletic performance and commercial position. In this way, they increase social interest and coverage by the mass media, which give preference to information related to these two top two clubs over others (Isasi, 2006). Regarding the second issue, it is evident that the victories of the Spanish national team in three consecutive international competitions in which it participated – the 2010 World Cup and the 2008 and 2012 UEFA European Championships – have marked one of the most important milestones in the history of Spanish sport and, probably, the most important in the history of football. These achievements were accompanied by broad television audiences, multitudinous public celebrations and an undisguised national euphoria that has signified a great transformation in the discourse about the national team. In a way, it has meant the rehabilitation of the Spanish national identity after the loss of prestige it suffered at the end of the Franco dictatorship and the end of a transition period in which images and stereotypes from the past still survived. The former President of the Spanish government, José Luis 46 Spanish Football and Social Change

Rodríguez Zapatero, expressed this in declarations published in the El País newspaper:

A victory at this level always implies an affirmation, a moment of pride for the country. And Spain, in the entire democratic period, the best in our history, did not achieve anything like it. There was a sort of drama for not having achieved it, having a great football league and great players. And finally, we did it, and the transition in Spanish football has closed with this great victory (El País, 1 July 2008).

Conclusions

The purpose of this chapter was to show the historical process through which football reached a predominant position in Spanish society. To do so, an analysis was made of its historical trajectory in order to identify the factors that had the greatest effect on its development and configuration throughout the 20th century. The analysis referred to the three main periods in which the history of Spain is usually divided: the first third of the 20th century; the dictatorship of General Franco (1939–75); and the period of transition and restoration of democracy (from 1976 to the present). During the first third of the 20th century, football was organized regionally and became the expression of what we know today as autonomic identities. The Basque Country and Catalonia achieved their own autonomic football teams, and their main clubs, Athletic Club de Bilbao and FC Barcelona, became symbols of nationalist politics. The Spanish national team acquired a strong national symbolism after obtaining the Silver Medal in the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp. It was then that the myth of the Spanish fury emerged, a stereotype that would accompany the team during the rest of the 20th century. According to this myth, courage and virility were the characteristics of the team’s playing style and, therefore, the resource it should draw on to elevate its competitive performance. The adoption of professionalism in 1926 and the inauguration of the League in 1929 created a complex national competitive context that increased the spectacular nature of football and interest in it throughout the entire country. During the Franco dictatorship, football became one of the main components of Spaniards’ ‘escapism culture’. It was one of the few sporting practices that was accessible to a large majority of the population, as well as the favourite spectacle of a population that wished to flee from the miserable socio-political and economic reality in which it Historical Configuration 47 lived. The radio and, later, television helped to increase football’s spread and capture Spaniards’ interest in a society in which there were few alternatives for leisure activities. The victory of the national team over England in the World Cup in Brazil (1950), the victories of Real Madrid in the first five editions of the European Cup (1956–60), the victory of the national team in the second edition of the European Nations’ Cup (1964) and the arrival of the first international football stars in Spanish football had a decided influence on the footballization of Spanish society. Although the regime initially did nothing to contribute to the development of football in material terms, in the 1950s it became aware of its potential for propaganda and began to use football for political pur- poses through control over radio and television. In this period, Spanish football started a process of nationalization that was made evident by the promotion of the image of the Spanish national team and Real Madrid’s adoption of a centralist image due to its role as the regime’s ambassador. In the 1960s and 1970s, on the other hand, Basque and Catalan nationalism found a catalyst for their dreams in football, and this continued with the arrival of democracy, when the patriotic vocabulary that accompanied the Spanish national team finally vanished. Football started a new phase of peripheral nationalisms. In the 1980s and 1990s the Spanish national team and Real Madrid lost their hegemonic role: a multinational Spain was emerging in the stadiums and would transform the football scenario into a more plural and complex space. In the first decade of the 21st century, the identitary map of Spanish football began to be rewritten due to the growing supremacy of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona and the recent acclaimed victories of the Spanish national team, topics we will return to in coming chapters.

Note

1. No-Do is the acronym for ‘Noticiarios y Documentales’ (News and Documentaries), a state-controlled series of cinema newsreels produced in Spain from 1940s to 1970s, closely associated with the dictatorship of Franco. 3 Team Identification and Football Culture

The two previous chapters have shown the importance of identification with the main football clubs in Spanish football culture. While the first chapter presented the fact that 66.8 per cent of Spanish adults identify with a football club, the second – among other aspects – offered a description of the way these feelings of identification have evolved during the 20th century. From early on, the social sciences highlighted the capacity of sport to provide an ideal space for the expression of local, regional or national antagonisms. The followers of sport teams identify intensely with the teams from their own town, region or country because they perceive them as symbols of a specific form of collective coexistence (Bromberger, 2000, p. 262). Eric Hobsbawm suggested that what placed football in a central place in social life was the ease with which the population could identify with the nation ‘as symbolised by eleven young men who do extremely well what practically everyone wants or has wanted to do at some time in their lives’ (Hobsbawm, 1990, pp. 152–3). The extension of the game to all the social strata created a sentiment of ‘common belonging’ among uprooted sectors of modern urban areas that arose with the industrial revolution, which shows football’s capacity to develop a common public space. As Alfred Wahl has suggested, by recomposing collective identities, football was contributing to ‘giving a new balance to modern industrial societies’ (Wahl, 1997, p. 51). This identification process also occurred in Spain, as the previous chapter showed, although with some delay compared to the main European countries (Burns, 2013, p. 64). Likewise the mass media played an essential role in transforming football into a mass spectacle – especially television – and over time it became a ritualized public spheree where representations of the national and regional cultures were produced. For this

48 Team Identification and Football Culture 49 reason, football is currently a public space for identification, capable of influencing the population’s interaction patterns, generating large audiences and consumer behaviours, and stimulating a broad repertoire of feelings and emotions. This chapter offers an approach to identification with football clubs, as well as other aspects of the football culture of Spanish fans, such as the club’s image, attendance at stadiums and the purchasing of products related to the club (Llopis-Goig, 2013a). The first section of the chapter contains a theoretical introduction to the object of study. The second section examines identification with football clubs in Spain and analyses the reasons for it. The third section delves into the case of FC Barcelona, and the fourth offers an analysis of the main behaviours and consumption patterns of the fans. The chapter closes with a conclusion.

Introduction

Throughout their lives, individuals usually ascribe to diverse communities of preferences and interests, based on which they form groups. Although with different degrees of ascription, these groups prove to be useful for giving meaning to life, resolving everyday dilemmas and orienting beliefs, sentiments and behaviours. Support for a football club is one of the axes of interaction around which these dynamics are organized, creating what in this chapter are generically called football cultures. The term football culture refers to a set of orientations, practices and sentiments whose main axis would be the identification with a football club (Ranc, 2012). Football cultures constitute social imaginaries and determine specific patterns of individual and collective behaviour. Among the components of the football culture, we would have to refer, in the first place, to the feeling of identification with the team, which is sometimes called a feeling of belonging (Ramírez, 2011) or loyalty (Gray and Wert-Gray, 2012). There are two main characteristics of this feeling of identification. The first is its variable intensity. Identification with the team varies among the members of the football culture, so that those with a greater degree of involvement form its nucleus, and around them are located, in successive layers, those with weaker feelings of identification and degrees of involvement. Secondly, it should be kept in mind that football cultures are not only composed of identification with a team. Like any other social phenomenon that implies a process of identitary construction, they are also based on otherness, as in the definition of us it is necessary to delimit and identify a rival. This rivalry is a relevant dimension of football cultures and is nurtured by the clubs’ 50 Spanish Football and Social Change historical memory, something that goes beyond official documents and files, as it is a shared strength that provides the fans with cohesion. However, beyond the literal implications of identification, that is, a feeling of belonging with variable intensity, it should be pointed out that its main components are an emotional bondd and personal commitment (Fullerton, 2006). The emotional bond consists of a psychological connection established between the fan and the team. It involves the universe of emotions and feelings that surround the individual and provide cohesion around a group of people who also identify with the team, giving rise to a notion of us. It implies the formation of a channel through which this emotional current circulates. On the other hand, personal commitment refers to the set of individual and collective practices with which the fan updates his/her support and adhesion to the club. It consists of, therefore, all those ritual and consumer behaviours that the fan performs with the objective of adhering to and reinforcing his/her relationship with the club. Fullerton recognized the multidimensional character of sport consumption and pointed out the existence of three types of behaviours that can be considered indicators of a fan’s relationship with or involvement in a sport club (Fullerton, 2006). The first is the use, which includes both the livee attendance at matches and watching it on television or through any other audio-visual means. Therefore, it consists of behaviours that provide basic situations of contact between fans and clubs. A second type of behaviour has to do with the fans’ response to the proposals for merchandising and licensed products of the club, among which are included the purchase of clothes or any other object where the name of the team or its logotype and corporate colours appear. The last type would be mouth-to-mouth communication, which refers to fans’ conversations with other people in which they talk about the team and make comments about its playing style, the footballers’ performance, the results, and the expectations for victory, among a variety of other topics. These three types of behaviours can be considered manifestations of the existence of a strong psychological relationship between the fans and their team (Gray and Wert-Gray, 2012). In fact, other researchers have shown that identification with the team influences the aforementioned behaviours of consumption and attending the team’s games (Murrel and Dietz, 1992; Fisher and Wakefield, 1998; Laverie and Arnett, 2000; Wakefield, 1995; Matsuoka et al., 2003), which has a positive impact – among other factors – on the intention to purchase the club’s products (merchandis- ingg) (Fisher and Wakefield, 1998; Trail and James, 2003), and that there is a positive relationship between identification with the team and the Team Identification and Football Culture 51 transmission of mouth-to-mouth communication about it (Trail and James, 2003; Madrigal and Chen, 2008). These three types of behaviours – the usee (livee attendance and televised consumption), the purchase of merchan- disingg products and mouth-to-mouth communication about the team – are indicators of the existence of a strong psychological relationship between the fans and their team (Gray and Wert-Gray, 2012) and constitute the basic components of what is defined here as a football culture. This chapter presents a study of the identification with football clubs with data from a representative survey of the Spanish population. To date, no other study has dealt with an objective of this nature, which is surprising considering the strong presence and central role of football in Spanish society (Llopis-Goig, 2011a). However, it is an object of study whose scientific interest has gradually increased in the context of the economic and social transformation Spanish football has experienced in the past two decades. On one hand, the clubs’ conversion to Limited Sport Societies – based on the Sport Law of 1990 – broke the associative tradition in which the relations between the clubs and their fans had previously developed (Palomar, 1999). On the other hand, since the well-known Bosman Ruling occurred in 1995, there has been an elimination of protectionist measures in the European Union countries that has fostered the territorial mobility of footballers (Giulianotti, 1999). Both of these events could have affected the relations between the fans and their clubs, producing a lessening in the interest in football and weakening the feelings of identification with the clubs. This scenario of changes and transformations is the context for the contribution made in this chapter. Therefore, following the theoretical proposal developed above, this chapter offers a quantitative exploratory analysis of the identification with football clubs, as well as other aspects of the football culture of Spanish fans, especially those aspects related to the positioning of the clubs and the main behaviours and consumption patterns. More specifically, it will respond to the following questions: What presence does the identification with football clubs have in Spanish society? How is it distributed among the different clubs? What is the identification with the clubs based on? What types of social practices and consumption patterns do the fans carry out? What emotional bonds do they establish with the clubs? And finally, what differences exist between the followers of the different football clubs in the diverse aspects that make up the football culture? The information presented in this chapter comes from a survey by the Sociological Research Centre conducted in May 2007 with a sample 52 Spanish Football and Social Change of 2473 Spanish adults (CIS, 2007). All of the data presented in this chapter come from this source, with the exception of those included in the section dedicated to FC Barcelona, which are from various studies financed by the Catalonian Government in the first decade of the 21st century that have been the object of a major analysis in previous publications (Llopis-Goig, 2006b, 2008b).

Identification with football clubs in Spain

As mentioned in the first chapter, 66.8 per cent of Spaniards identify with a football club. The percentage seems high considering that the interest in this sport in Spanish society is situated at 54.3 per cent (Llopis-Goig, 2011a). But beyond this piece of data, the information found in Table 3.1 makes it possible to know to which clubs this identification refers. In the first column of the table, the data correspond to the first football club each fan identifies with, which has been called ‘basic identification’. As can be observed, Spanish football fans adhere to a wide variety of first- division Spanish football teams, although Real Madrid and FC Barcelona obtain the highest rates (32.8 per cent and 25.7 per cent, respectively). The next clubs on the table have much less social support: Valencia CF (5.3 per cent), Athletic de Bilbao (5.1 per cent), Atlético de Madrid (4.3 per cent), Real Betis (3.3 per cent), Real Zaragoza (2.7 per cent), Sevilla FC (2.3 per cent), Deportivo de La Coruña (2.2 per cent) and Celta de Vigo (2.2 per cent). Finally, the teams with about one per cent support are CA Osasuna (1.3 per cent), Real Sociedad (1.3 per cent) and RCD Espanyol (1 per cent). The rest of the teams represent a little more than ten per cent of the total number of the ascriptions. Thus, there is a clear supremacy of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona: almost six out of ten Spaniards who identify with a football team – 58.5 per cent – do so with one of these two clubs. The distance from the next teams on the list is considerable: Real Madrid has six times the social base of Valencia CF, the club with the third greatest proportion of fans at the national level, and FC Barcelona has five times Valencia’s base. Table 3.1 shows, moreover, that more than half of the Spaniards who identify with a football club mention another club toward which they also feel sympathy. As the second column (additional identifications) shows, 54.5 per cent of fans have other identifications. Again, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona obtain the highest responses, 6.8 per cent and 6.6 per cent, respectively. They are followed by Sevilla FC and RCD Espanyol (both with 3.8 per cent), Atlético de Madrid (3.4 per cent) and Team Identification and Football Culture 53

Table 3.1 Identification with football clubs in Spanish society

Football clubsFootball Other clubs Total club with with which (basic and which they they identify additional identify (basic (additional identifications) identification) identifications)

Real Madrid CF 32.8 6.8 39.6 FC Barcelona 25.7 6.6 32.3 Valencia CF 5.3 2.8 8.1 Athletic Club de Bilbao 5.1 2.2 7.3 Atlético de Madrid 4.3 3.4 7.7 Real Betis Balompié 3.3 2.7 6.0 Real Zaragoza 2.7 1.4 4.1 Sevilla FC 2.3 3.8 6.1 RC Deportivo de La 2.2 1.8 4.0 Coruña RC Celta de Vigo 2.2 1.2 3.4 CA Osasuna 1.3 0.8 2.1 Real Sociedad 1.3 1.5 2.8 RCD Espanyol 1.0 3.8 4.8 Other responses 10.5 15.7 26.2 Total 100.0 54.5 154.5

Unit: vertical percentages. Base: population that identifies with a football club (66.8 per cent of the sample). The total column adds up to more than 100 per cent, given that it contains the global sum of identification (multiple response). Source: Llopis-Goig (2014a). Own elaboration based on CIS (2007).

Valencia CF (2.8 per cent). Surprisingly, three cases obtain higher additional identification rates than their basic rates: Sevilla, Real Sociedad and RCD Espanyol. The last registers an additional identification rate that is practically four times its basic rate. However, adding the rates of basic identification to the additional rates (third column of Table 3.1) yields a ranking of the clubs that differs very little from the initial order – at least in the first positions – but shows some effects in the cases of Atlético de Madrid, Sevilla and Espanyol. One of the elements that seems to influence the identification with a football team most is the geographical link, something that should not be surprising considering the historical analysis presented in the second chapter of this book. This link is shown in Table 3.2, which col- lects the fans’ responses to a question about the reasons they identify with their football team. The main reason presented, with 32.3 per cent, is the place of birth or residence. The second reason is the social and family environment (20.4 per cent) and in third place is having 54 Spanish Football and Social Change been a fan since childhood (13.1 per cent), both of which point out the importance of the socialization context and structure in the relation with the football clubs. Next, and with lower percentages, reasons have to do with sport (9.7 per cent), satisfaction with the team (5.3 per cent) and their political values (2.8 per cent), as well as sentimental feelings (1.6 per cent). The Chi-squared test confirms that the relationship between the two variables (identification with a football club and reasons for the identification) is statistically significant. In the case of Real Madrid, the most important reason for identifying with it is the family and social environment (28.7 per cent), followed by reasons of a sporting nature (16.1 per cent), which in both cases are above the average. However, the place of birth or residence is only mentioned by 7.2 per cent. The reasons for identification with FC Barcelona are located along the average, while Valencia CF obtains a profile that is practically the opposite of Real Madrid’s, as the place of birth in this case is mentioned by 80.7 per cent. Athletic de Bilbao (51.8 per cent) also obtains a large proportion of responses that mention the place of birth or residence, although in this case the percentage for values associated with the team is significantly high (11.8 per cent). In the case of Atlético de Madrid, the family and social environment is the most important reason (36.6 per cent), and social values associated with the team also lies above the average (8.5 per cent), while the place of birth or residence is hardly mentioned (0.1 per cent). A quite similar pattern is presented by Real Betis, with 54.5 per cent who refer to the family and social environment, and a meagre 5.5 per cent who mention the place of birth or residence. In this case, however, the values associated with the team are not a relevant element. Based on the same data examined for Table 3.2, an analysis of correspondences was performed that made it possible to trace a map of the positioning of the football clubs in Spanish public opinion, simultane- ously considering the information related to the identification with the football teams and the reasons for this identification. Figure 3.1 shows that the results are organized around a horizontal axis that explains 76.8 per cent of the inertia (variance) and a vertical axis that is responsible for 11.3 per cent. At the right pole of the horizontal axis is the identification based on place of birth or residence (regional component), while around the left are the reasons related to the social and family environment. In addition, the vertical axis is structured around a dimension that has the team’s association with social values (extra-sport) at its upper extreme and sporting motives at the lower extreme. The bifactorial space constructed by these two axes makes it possible to identify various football enclaves in the form of factorial spaces in which Team Identification and Football Culture 55

Table 3.2 Reasons for identification with football clubs in Spanish society

Reasons for Club with which they identify TotalT identification MAD FCB VAL ATH ATL BET

Birth or residence 7.2 28.8 80.7 51.8 0.1 5.5 32.3 Family and social setting 28.7 17.5 10.2 4.7 36.6 54.5 20.4 Fan since childhood 17.2 14.6 3.4 11.8 22.5 16.4 13.1 Sport reasons 16.1 12.0 3.4 1.2 7.0 3.6 9.7 It’s the one I like 6.7 6.8 0.1 2.4 4.2 10.9 5.3 Political values 3.1 4.7 – 4.7 – 1.8 2.8 General values 1.7 1.7 – 11.8 8.5 – 2.1 Sentimental reasons 0.9 1.7 – 1.2 4.2 3.6 1.6 Others or no reason 3.9 1.9 1.1 1.2 1.4 0.1 2.1 Don’t know/Don’t ask 14.5 10.3 1.1 9.2 15.5 3.6 10.6 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

MAD: Real Madrid Football Club; FCB: Football Club Barcelona; VAL: Valencia Football Club; ATH: Athletic Club de Bilbao; ATL: Atlético de Madrid; BET: Real Betis Balompié Unit: vertical percentages. Base: population that identifies with a football club (66.8 per cent of the sample). The analysis was restricted to those clubs whose subsample of basic identification had a minimum of 50 cases. Source: Llopis-Goig (2013a). Own elaboration based on CIS (2007).

Social values

ATHLÉTIC Place of birth or residence ATLÉTICO DE BILBAO DE MADRID

DEPORTIVO FC BARCELONA DE LA CORUÑA REAL MADRID

REAL BETIS Social and familiar environment familiar and Social Sporting values VALENCIA CF

Unit: scores for row and columns (analysis of correspondences). Base: population that identifies with the football clubs included in the analysis

Figure 3.1 Positioning of the main football clubs in Spain Source: Llopis-Goig (2013a). Own elaboration based on CIS (2007). 56 Spanish Football and Social Change the football teams are located, as well as the traits significantly attributed to them. Taking into account that the horizontal axis explains the greatest proportion of variance, it should be pointed out that among the seven football clubs analysed, the main difference is that in the identification with some of the clubs, the place of birth or residence takes precedence over the socio-familiar environment. This is the case of the fans of Athletic de Bilbao, Deportivo de La Coruña and Valencia CF, all of whom belong to bilingual autonomous regions. On the other hand, identification related to the socio-familiar environment is found among the fans of Atlético de Madrid, Real Madrid and Real Betis, perhaps because their social base extends beyond the city where the club is located. FC Barcelona lies at the mid-point, perhaps because, although its social base is very broad in Catalonia, it goes beyond this region, which reduces the importance of the place of birth or residence as the explanatory factor for identification with this club. Furthermore, Figure 3.1 contains another axis – the vertical one – that helps to interpret the position of each of these seven football clubs. The axis shows that five of them are located in the inferior part and that, therefore, there is a certain predominance of sporting motives compared to extra-sport reasons for being linked to the clubs. This is the case with Real Betis, Valencia CF, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Deportivo de La Coruña, although the latter three clubs lie in a position quite near the mid-point of the axis. In contrast, two clubs, Atlético de Madrid and Athletic de Bilbao, are clearly located in the upper part, which appear alone in the upper left and upper right quadrants, respectively, obtaining a unique and specific positioning in the Spanish football panorama. Atlético de Madrid occupies a football enclave characterized by the presence of social values (in this case related to aspects such as having been a fan since childhood and sentimental-type reasons) and the influence of the socio-familiar environment. Athletic de Bilbao, also by itself, is located in the confluence of the social values associated with the team and the place of birth and residence, as the territorial component continues to have considerable weight in identification with this club.

FC Barcelona This section is a brief parenthesis in the development of this chapter, as its purpose is to offer a special analysis of the case of FC Barcelona, a club whose identitary and political repercussions are well known. FC Barcelona has been defined as ‘the epic sublimation of the Catalan people’ (Artells, 1972, p. 7), and described as ‘more than just a club’, in an attempt to reflect the enormous transcendence of its performances Team Identification and Football Culture 57

(Cirili and Mercé, 1975, p. 4). The purpose of this section is to examine FC Barcelona’s current significance for its followers, its identitary implications and its role as a symbol of Catalonia. According to data from a survey carried out by the Catalonian government titled The Image of Catalonia in Spain (Llopis-Goig, 2008b), 53 per cent of the Catalan people associate FC Barcelona with the idea of Catalonia, far more than those who associate it with a football team (21 per cent) or with the city of Barcelona (17 per cent); this is in contrast to the rest of Spain, which associates it first with the idea of a football team (see Table 3.3). It is clear, then, that the Catalans, much more than Spanish people in general, perceive FC Barcelona as a sort of a ‘national team’. Furthermore, these results reveal that for the Catalan people, the team composition of FC Barcelona – one of the Spanish teams with the most foreign players (Llopis-Goig, 2006b, 2008b) – is compatible with its character as a national symbol of Catalonia. This apparent paradox is better reflected in the data contained in Table 3.4, which shows that 39 per cent of Catalan fans of FC Barcelona are indifferent to where the footballers on their team come from, with only 17 per cent preferring players born in Catalonia. The table reveals, therefore, that neither the

Table 3.3 Image of FC Barcelona in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain

With what do you first With a With the city With Total identify FC Barcelona? football team of Barcelona Catalonia

Answers in Catalonia 21 17 53 100 Answers in the rest of Spain 35 28 29 100

Unit: percentages. Source: Llopis-Goig (2008b, p. 70).

Table 3.4 Preferred composition of the FC Barcelona team

What would you like the composition Followers of Followers of FC of your team to be like? FC Barcelona Barcelona in in Catalonia the rest of Spain

Footballers born in Catalonia 17 13 Catalan footballers and a few foreigners 25 10 From all of Spain and foreigners 14 24 Don’t care 3942 Don’t know/don’t answer 5 11 Total 100 100

Unit: percentages. Source: Llopis-Goig (2008b, p. 71). 58 Spanish Football and Social Change

Catalan followers of FC Barcelona nor those from the rest of Spain are particularly concerned about the national origins of the members of the Barcelona team. Thus, the club continues to be a symbol of Catalonia, and its fans are indifferent to the nationality of the members of the team. In this way, a ‘glocal’ dynamic is activated, which shows how the internationalization of the club, far from eradicating its local dimension, reinforces it.

Behaviours and consumption patterns of the fans

The consumption patterns and ritual behaviours carried out by the followers of a football team due to their identification with it make up one of the components of football cultures that should not be ignored. However, this section will provide only a brief analysis. The most common behaviour among the followers of a football team is – as Table 3.5 shows – the consumption of televised matches (72.8 per cent), which is significantly more common to possession of flags, shields or team objects (42 per cent) and attendance at the stadium (36.9 per cent). However, three out of ten buy their team’s clothing or objects for personal use (29.2 per cent) and two out of ten pay to watch their team’s matches on television (21 per cent). Less common is going to another city or country to follow the team, which is done by only 15.3 per cent and 2.6 per cent, respectively. Three of the seven behaviours analysed are significantly associated with the identification with a football club, which means there are differences between the followers of the different teams with regard to consumption of televised matches, possession of flags, shields or other team objects, and the purchase of clothing or personal-use objects featuring the club’s emblem (see Table 3.5). Real Madrid supporters obtain the highest rate (77.4 per cent) of consumption of televised matches, while the followers of Atlético de Madrid register the lowest rate (57.7 per cent). Regarding the possession of club objects in their homes, Real Betis fans achieve the highest proportion (63.6 per cent), while the two clubs from Madrid – Real and Atlético – obtain the lowest (38.3 per cent and 35.3 per cent, respectively). Finally, Real Madrid fans have the lowest rate of buying their team’s clothing and personal-use objects (25.1 per cent), while Valencia CF fans have the highest rate (43.2 per cent). In all the other cases, the scores of the followers of each club did not show statistically significant percentage differences, which can be interpreted as a clear indication of the existence of quite similar patterns of commitment to the club among the fans of the main Spanish clubs. Team Identification and Football Culture 59

Table 3.5 Consumption of televised matches, live attendance and acquisition of merchandising

Football club they identify with TotalT

MAD FCB VAL ATH ATL BET

Televised consumption of football matches Watch, whenever I can, their 77.4 74.8 73.9 67.1 57.7 67.3 72.8 matches on television Pay to watch their matches on 23.8 20.5 21.6 21.2 25.4 12.7 21.0 television Live consumption of football matches Attend their team’s matches at 32.5 38.7 39.8 37.6 38.0 36.4 36.9 the football stadium Go to another city to watch 13.1 16.5 12.5 9.4 12.7 20.0 15.3 their team play Go to another country to watch 1.7 4.0 4.5 2.4 1.4 – 2.6 their team play Owning and acquiring club products (merchandising) Have flags, shields and other 38.3 46.7 50.0 35.3 46.5 63.6 42.0 team objects Purchase team clothing or 25.1 32.1 43.2 30.6 25.4 40.0 29.2 personal-use objects Emotional Reactions Anger with family members or 13.7 16.7 15.9 12.9 14.1 17.3 14.5 friends for criticizing their team

MAD: Real Madrid; FCB: FC Barcelona; VAL: Valencia CF; ATH: Athletic Club de Bilbao; ATL: Atlético de Madrid; BET: Real Betis Balompié. Unit: percentages. Base: population that identifies with a football club (66.8 per cent of the sample). The analysis was restricted to those clubs whose subsample of basic identification reached a minimum of 50 cases. Source: Llopis-Goig (2013a). Own elaboration based on CIS (2007).

The same can be said about the emotional and sentimental responses toward football teams. As shown in the last column of Table 3.5, 14.5 per cent of the fans state that they get angry with friends or family members for criticizing their team, a reaction that shows no statistically significant differences among the followers of the clubs analysed.

Conclusions

This chapter has presented an exploratory analysis of what have been proposed as the basic components of a football culture, that is, football fans’ emotional bonding with and personal commitment to their clubs. 60 Spanish Football and Social Change

In addition, identification with a club has been included as the central aspect of the study carried out. The analysis conducted has shown the importance of the football clubs as enclaves of identification in Spanish society, as two-thirds of the population (66.8 per cent) identify with a football team. The relevance of this percentage is that it exceeds the interest in this sport, which, as some studies have pointed out, is 54.3 per cent. The study has shown that Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are the two clubs with the highest rates of identification (32.8 per cent and 25.7 per cent, respectively), which reveals the hegemonic position of these two teams in Spanish public opinion. Their distance from the next clubs on the list is considerable: Real Madrid has six times, and FC Barcelona five times, the social base of Valencia CF, the Spanish club with the third greatest proportion of followers at the national level (5.3 per cent). In fact, the two teams together receive more than 58.5 per cent of the basic identifications. They are also the two teams that obtain the highest rates of additional or second identifications (6.8 per cent and 6.6 per cent, respectively), reaching 13.4 per cent (out of a total of 54.5 per cent). Although they are both hundred-year-old teams, in the past 15 years their economic success has placed them at the peak of football. In fact, according to the study elaborated by the Deloitte company every year, in 2011, for the third consecutive year, these two clubs had the highest incomes in the world, with revenue of 479.5 million euros for Real Madrid and 450.7 euros for FC Barcelona (Deloitte, 2012). The fact that the mass media give disproportionate coverage to these two teams has also contributed decisively to their supremacy (Isasi, 2006) in a context in which football news and comment clearly dominate sport programming (González-Ramallal, 2004). The place of birth or residence is the reason most frequently given by fans to explain why they identify with a club (32.3 per cent), a clear indication that, for Spaniards, clubs continue to exert a strong symbolic potential for ascription, thanks to the link they establish with the place (city or region) where they are located. However, it must be pointed out that the second most important reason is the social and family environment (20.4 per cent) and the third is having been a fan since childhood (13.1 per cent). This order has different importance depending on the club in question. For the followers of Real Madrid, Atlético de Madrid and Real Betis, the socio-familial environment and having been a fan since childhood are the two most influential reasons for identification with the club, while the place of birth or residence attracts irrelevant percentages. In the case of FC Barcelona, marked by its historical link Team Identification and Football Culture 61 to identitary and regionalist factors, the place of birth or residence is the first reason mentioned (28.8 per cent), although with a percentage slightly lower than the global average (32.3 per cent). It is obvious that its broad geographical social support base keeps the place of birth or residence from achieving a higher percentage. However, this does not occur in the cases of Valencia CF and Athletic de Bilbao, whose supporters continue to mention the place of birth or residence as the primary reason for identifying with the club (80.7 per cent and 51.8 per cent, respectively). On the other hand, socio-political values have a low presence in the fans’ responses, attracting about 2.1 per cent. However, two clubs, Athletic de Bilbao and Atlético de Madrid, appear very closely linked to these types of values, as the analysis presented in the second section points out. This chapter has also examined whether FC Barcelona has conserved its historical identitary symbolism in the current context of the globalization of European football. The analysis of the available data reveals that the club continues to be a symbol of Catalonia, and its fans are indifferent to the nationality of the members of the team. In this way, a ‘glocal’ dynamic is activated, which shows how the globalization of the club reinforces its local dimension, rather than eliminating it. This apparent paradox, which some authors have defined as ‘cosmopolitan nationalism’ (Foer, 2004, p. 171), shows how FC Barcelona can be considered a ‘glocalised’ phenomenon, according to Roland Robertson’s interpretation of this term, which explains how ‘the local’ is socially constructed in the context of globalization processes (Robertson, 1995). One theoretical explanation for this identitary continuity could arise from the fact that what gives a sports act its symbolic power is not the component of local or national identification, but rather athletic confrontation and structured competition following certain rules and requiring an outcome with a winner and a loser. These components of sporting activity would facilitate the emotional connection in such a way that professional sport, as a rite that unites and enchants, would not be threatened by the geographical mobility of the players involved. Hence, what seems contradictory becomes possible: the internationalization of a club like FC Barcelona coexists with feelings of national or regional identification. This fact was recognized by the former president of FC Barcelona himself, Joan Laporta, in an interview: ‘about the possible problem of maintaining the identity of the club within this globalised world, Barça should not have difficulties. Barça is a very important institution in Catalonia, and in this sense, as stated in another era, it is the club of Catalonia’ (Murillo and Murillo, 2005, p. 340). 62 Spanish Football and Social Change

The fourth block of results in this chapter examines, together with identification with a club, the basic components of football cultures: personal commitmentt and the emotional link. The former refers to those behaviours the fans perform with the purpose of renewing their relationship with the club. The latter refers to the psychological connection established between the fans and the clubs, and through which there is a flow of feelings and emotions that surround the individual and make him/her a member of the community of the club’s fans. The seven behaviours examined in relation to personal commitmentt show a quite variable presence among Spanish fans. Consumption of televised matches, with an incidence of 72.8 per cent, was the most relevant activity for Spanish fans, much higher than pay per view, which reached 21 per cent. This last behaviour was surpassed by attendance at matches in stadiums (36.9 per cent), which was noticeably reduced when it involved travel to other cities or countries. Other behaviours indicative of the fans’ personal commitment to the club consisted of owning and buying objects, as 42 per cent of the clubs’ followers keep flags, shields and other team objects, and 29.2 per cent say they have bought products featuring the club’s brand or logo. Both figures clearly reveal the existence of a link between the fans and the clubs. Regarding the emotional bond, the available indicator shows that 14.5 per cent of the fans who identify with a club feel annoyed when their team is criticized by family members or friends. The results presented in this chapter make it possible to extract four main conclusions: the relevance of football as a space for identification; the hegemonic position of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in Spanish public opinion; the variety of elements that form the basis for the image of the main Spanish football clubs; and the relative homogeneity of the clubs’ followers in their behaviours and consumption patterns. The relevance of football as a space of identification clearly shows the Spanish football clubs’ potential for symbolic adhesion. The clubs are, therefore, a true public space of identification that has not been dam- aged by the social changes or economic transformations experienced by football in recent decades. Real Madrid and FC Barcelona occupy a hegemonic position in this space, a circumstance related not only to their hundred-year-old history and numerous victories, but also to the economic leadership and media presence that both teams have intensified in the past few years. Although there are no quantitative studies on the topic that make it possible to perform a developmental comparative analysis, it is likely that the economic and social transformations in which Spanish football Team Identification and Football Culture 63 has played a leading role during the past two decades have modified the reasons fans identify with their clubs. In spite of this, the place of birth or residence continues to be the most determinant factor, indicat- ing that the football clubs have not lost their character of representing cities and regions. However, social and family context and socialization during childhood play a significant role in creating the patterns of identification with a football club, and they offer a broad space to the mass media and groups of peers for the formation of football cultures. The results obtained from the analysis of the two main dimensions of the football culture – personal commitment and emotional bonding – make it possible to draw two final conclusions. The first is the importance of identification with a club in fans’ daily practices and behaviours, suggesting the existence of a process of emblemization of the club, which – as pointed out in the first chapter of this book – is what gives rise to the wide range of behaviours related to the social efficacy of contemporary rituals in creating meaning (Segalen, 2005). Second, although the behaviours examined differ greatly from each other in the degree to which they are performed by the fans, there is a relatively general homogeneity in the traits that define the football culture of the supporters of the main Spanish clubs. 4 The Decline of the Spanish Fury

Before the Spanish national team won the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament, it had been said that the economic take-off and growing international relevance acquired by Spanish society since the restoration of democracy after the death of General Franco had not been reflected in Spanish football. Its main representative, the Spanish national football team did not manage to obtain significant victories in the most important international championships or develop a playing style that satisfied its followers. This fact strongly contrasted with the protagonist role and huge success achieved by the main Spanish football clubs at the European level. However, the victory of the Spanish national team in Euro 2008, and then in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2012 tournament, marked a point of inflection that divided the history of Spanish football into two parts. This chapter offers an historical analysis of the identity and playing style of the Spanish national football team. The analysis examines the usual aspects mentioned to explain its poor results during the first nine decades of its history, as well as factors that may have played a crucial role in its more recent victories. The text is structured in four sections. The first offers an historic sketch of the birth and evolution of the myth of the Spanish fury (‘Furia española’) playing style characteristic of the Spanish national team. This section expands on what was mentioned in the second chapter in addressing the specific objectives of the present chapter. The second section reviews the national team’s performance in the main international competitions and championships throughout its recent history, as well as arguments frequently used to explain its poor results. Furthermore, this section explains why the usual arguments to explain the weaknesses of the Spanish national team in international competitions did not apply to its performance in Euro 2008. The third

64 The Decline of the Spanish Fury 65 section goes beyond the earlier analysis to offer an interpretation of the aspects that may have had the most influence on the Spanish team’s Euro 2008 victory: achieving an optimum level of group cohesion and developing a unique playing style that substituted the previous Spanish fury. The final section extends the analysis to the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012.

From its origins to Euro 2008

The Spanish national team played its first game on 28 August 1920 at the Olympic Games in Antwerp. It won a silver medal, given that Czechoslovakia forfeited the final against Belgium and was disqualified, which led to new games to be played to award the silver and bronze medals. The expression ‘fury’ was used by a Dutch newspaper after the game Spain played against Sweden (on the first of September of that same year) to refer to the team’s playing style and, especially, to the player José María Belausteguigoitia, alias ‘Belauste’. In using this expression, the newspaper was making reference to the Plundering of Antwerp, an episode in Spanish military history whose protagonists were the Spanish Infantry of Flanders in November 1576 (Rivas, 2008). At first, not everyone used the same expression. For example, t he Italian press used the expression furia rossa (‘red fury’) referring to the colour of the Spanish national team’s shirt (Bacigalupe, 2005, p. 29). A specific action in the second half of the game against Sweden provoked the use of the expression ‘furia’. The game had been well-played due to the strong physical display of the Swedish team, which had managed to lead the scoreboard. In the middle of the second half, Sabino Bilbao, an Athletic de Bilbao player, got ready to take a free kick after a foul. From the area, Belauste demanded that Sabino pass the ball to him with a military-sounding sentence that was recounted after the game: ‘Let me at the troops, Sabino, because I’ll run them over!’ Sabino listened and kicked the ball to Belauste, who charged through the Swedish players, running into the goal area with the ball balanced on his chest (Unzueta, 2011). The goal was extremely popular in Spain in the 1920s, and its influence on the rise of football was decisive. Over time, it found a place in the football memory of Spaniards. The myth of the Spanish fury was born. It is no accident that it was a Basque player who performed this myth-creating act, as Spanish football before the Civil War was clearly dominated by the Basque clubs, especially Athletic de Bilbao. Their much-admired direct playing style and great physical prowess later 66 Spanish Football and Social Change formed the basis for the stereotype of the furia española (Martialay, 2000; Díaz-Noci, 2000). As mentioned in the second chapter, after the Civil War (1936–39), the period of dictatorship began (1939–75), and sport became subordinated to the state and infused with fascist ideology. The National Sports Delegation became controlled by the regime’s political party, the Falange Española Tradicional y de las JONS; moreover, the clubs, which at the beginning of the 20th century had decided to establish the Spanish Football Federation, lost their power to decide its destiny, as well as its private nature and capacity for self-government. The Francoist authorities tried to make the Spanish national team reflect the regime’s fascist values: they obligated it to substitute its usual red shirt for a blue one (the colour of the Falange Española), and it required the team members to line up at the beginning of each game to chant fascist slogans (Shaw, 1987, pp. 81–2). The phalangist nature of the Spanish team, however, diminished considerably after the Second World War, when the new international political scene dissuaded Spanish authorities from con- tinuing to use fascist symbols at the national team’s matches. General Franco’s regime recovered the myth of the fury and linked it definitively to the adjective ‘Spanish’. The Spanish fury was redefined and integrated into the nomenclature of the military dictatorship, becoming one of the main virtues of the ‘New Spain’, and representing the Spanish values of virility, impetuosity and ferocity (Shaw, 1987; Diaz-Noci, 2000). The news media took on the task of elaborating a patriotic rhetoric in which to wrap their narration of the national team’s matches. The Falangist newspaper Arriba, for example, a few months after Franco’s victory in the Civil War, stated: ‘The Spanish fury is present in all aspects of Spanish life now more than ever … The sport where the fury is manifested most is football, a game in which the virility of the Spanish race can find its maximum expression, almost always overcoming more technical but less aggressive teams in international competitions.’ The important things were courage, the capacity for sacrifice and, above all, the opponent’s physical annihilation. The stereotype of the Spanish fury was renewed and elevated to the same rank as other myths and legends related to the conquests and glories of the country’s imperial past. Thus, football matches became just another battle of the Civil War; they had to be played with ‘blood, balls and fury’ (Burns, 2013, p. 140). There was no room in them for discussion or debate, or for refined technique or individual talent. Part of the success of the stereotype of the Spanish fury was due to the recovery of the image of the figure of the ideal Spaniard from the The Decline of the Spanish Fury 67

Spanish tradition: the myth of the noble knight – which reappeared so often in the history of Spanish literature – was now transferred to football stadiums and became a source of inspiration in defining the characteristics of a good footballer. Moreover, the contribution of some historical events would also be decisive in consolidating this stereotype. One of them was the victory of the Spanish national team over England in the 1950 World Cup, a tournament that had been postponed since 1938 due to the Second World War and its terrible consequences (Quiroga, 2013). Spain did not appear among the favourite countries for the final victory, but its presence had great political importance as it signified the opportunity to abandon the isolation imposed on it by the United Nations since 1946. The mythical goal by Zarra – referred to in the second chapter – gave victory to the Spanish team and made it a true emblem of the Spanish fury. Spain achieved the fourth position in that World Cup, a position that – with the exception of the victory obtained in the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 – was the best classification the national team has ever earned in this tournament. However, Spain did not manage to qualify for four of the following six World Cups, and its performance was fairly poor in the two in which it did participate. Spanish football clubs continued to develop their structures and raise their competitive level, but the national team was not able to assimilate the advances and innovations that the clubs introduced in their playing systems. The national team continued to flounder, and it appeared impossible to design a coherent project. This was made evident, for example, by the fact that between the World Cups of 1950 and 1962, a total of 16 coaches were in charge of the team. The victory of the Spanish national team in Euro 1964 produced a reactivation of the Spanish fury stereotype. The newspaper Arriba, for example, stated that the victory had been a demonstration that ‘the fury is invincible when it is lived with passion, aggressiveness, courage and virility’. The coach José Villalonga – a volunteer in the Civil War who later had a military career and ended up as coach of the national team – stated that he had prepared ‘a young, passionate, aggressive and virile team, based on the characteristic Hispanic values’ (Burns, 2013, p. 202). The synchronization between football and politics had reached its maximum expression, so that it is not surprising that after the victory the captain of the national team would dedicate the victory to the Head of State in name of the entire team. The European victory of 1964, however, could easily be considered an isolated event. The performance of the national team in the 1966 World Cup was disappointing. Villalonga’s authority over the players had been weakening, while the 68 Spanish Football and Social Change same thing was occurring to the regime with which he identified. The context was one of strong social changes provoked by economic development and the increasingly massive presence of foreign tourists. One of the national team’s players, Fusté, pointed out shortly afterward that the poor results were due to the fact that ‘the military still wanted to manage the national team’ (Burns, 2013, p. 206). Likewise, the Basque player Ángel Iríbar, when referring to this period, stated: ‘what we needed was not fury, but rather a clear style, a model, a system.’ Thus, at the end of the Francoist period, the balance sheet of the national team was clearly mediocre. Its image had been considerably weakened by its poor performance and by Real Madrid’s winning streak in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. As we observed in the second chapter, with the transition toward democracy football faced a transformation of the organizational structures designed by the Franco regime. A process of democratization had begun, and the clubs’ members recovered the right to vote in elections for club president (Llopis-Goig, 2008a). Nevertheless, the climate of euphoria and expectations of political change in the country were not reflected in the national team’s prospects, as it was still not achieving anything important on the international scene. On the other hand, attempts by the Francoists to establish identitary regimentation had produced an reactive explosion of cultural and territorial demands. From the beginning of the 1970s, Spanish football saw an increase in regionalist feelings, and the protagonists were no longer only the Basque Country and Catalonia; other regions also joined in. Football provided a means to express hostility toward the centralist regime and a way to project regional identity (Shaw, 1987). The transition to democracy fomented the resurgence of regional identities and laid bare a lack of agreement about the significance of the Spanish national identity. In this context, the Spanish national team lost social support, due not only to the rise in regionalist tendencies, but also to the poor results it had obtained in the last few competitions in which it had participated. In fact, the team did not qualify for the 1974 World Cup, and its performances in the 1978 and 1982 World Cups were quite poor. Thus the patriotic rhetoric that characterized the discourse around the Spanish national football team began to disappear. Mention of fury continued to be present in this period of democratic transition, but it only occurred intermittently and with decreasing frequency. After the disastrous performance of the national team in the 1982 World Cup, held in Spain, the stereotype of the Spanish fury experienced a new redefinition by the so-called Quinta del Buitre. This was the The Decline of the Spanish Fury 69 expression with which the journalist Julio César Iglesias – in an article published on 14 November 1983 in El País newspaper – referred to a group of five (‘Quinta’) Real Madrid players who seemed to personify a new and more effective version of the Spanish fury. The name of the group came from the nickname of Emilio Butragueño (‘el Buitre’ – ‘the Vulture’), a Real Madrid forward who, due to his speed and mobility on the field, became a talisman for the team. Manolo Sanchís, Rafael Martín Vázquez, Miguel González ‘Michel’ and Miguel Pardeza were the remaining members of this quintet that renewed Spanish football with their daring and their attacking orientation. The contribution of these players to Real Madrid was truly important: they won five consecutive League titles between 1985 and 1990. With them, furthermore, the national team achieved an outstanding performance in the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico, with Spain making an extraordinary exhibition of offensive football and reaching the quarter-finals, where it was eliminated by Belgium on penalties. Everything seemed to indicate that the national team had begun a new stage. In fact, in Euro 1984 (before the arrival of the Quinta del Buitre), the national team had reached the final and lost against France by 2–0, which actually was superior to the performance in the 1986 World Cup. In Euro 1988 – with Luis Suarez as the national coach – the problem became worse. It should be pointed out, moreover, that the playing style contributed by the Quinta del Buitre, both to Real Madrid and to the national team, continued to be maintained within the channels of the traditional Spanish fury. This is demonstrated by the fact that when the Mexican Hugo Sánchez joined them (at Real Madrid), the group was re-baptized as the Quinta de los Machos, which suggests that Spanish football still had not abandoned the vigorous and aggressive spirit of its traditional fury (Burns, 2013). As some studies have shown, during the 1980s and 1990s the Spanish press continued to assume the existence of a common playing identity whose main characteristics fit the stereotype of the Spanish fury (Crolley and Hand, 2002). Thus, although at times resorting to the Spanish fury stereotype was just a means used by the news media to incite fans and increase their sales, it is also true that coaches such as José Antonio Camacho, in his period in charge of the national team, used a wide range of behaviours, attitudes and symbols that followed the Spanish fury style, for which he himself had been en exemplar during his career as a player (for Real Madrid). For example, in a qualifying game for Euro 1984, in which the Spanish national team beat Malta by 12–1, Camacho pointed out: ‘we have shown that we are Spanish, and we brought out our temperament’ (ABC, 22 December 1983). 70 Spanish Football and Social Change

However, the consolidation of the democratic system and the socio-economic modernization of the country brought with them the progressive weakening of the Spanish fury. Spain’s entrance into the European Union and the international profile that the country began to acquire created a scenario in which the image of the Spanish fury was less and less effective as a tool for explaining the national team’s defeats. Sport came to play an important role in the image of modernity the country began to transmit in the 1990s. The 1992 Olympic Games were triumphantly held in Barcelona, and many Spanish athletes began to be successful on an international scale during those years (Bodin, 2011, p. 444). The victories of Miguel Induráin in various editions of the Tour of France, the victories of various Spanish tennis players at Roland Garros, and the success of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in European football demonstrated the progress of a country that was modernizing and aiming to compete as an equal with all the countries of Europe (Solís, 2003, p. 146). It seemed less and less plausible to refer to the lack of Spanish fury as the explanation for the poor performance of the Spanish national football team. After Spain was eliminated in the 1998 World Cup in France, the newspaper El País explained that ‘the lack of a winning mentality should replace the fury as the national characteristic of Spaniards’ (El País, 12 June 1998). The modern ization and normalization of the country were bringing the traditional discourse of the Spanish fury to an end (Quiroga, 2013, p. 489).

The traditional weaknesses of the Spanish national team

From 1964, when it won the European Nations’ Cup, until 2008, the Spanish national team did not produce a significant performance in any international tournament. They did not qualify for the World Cups of 1954, 1958, 1970 or 1974; they were eliminated in the first phase in 1962, 1966, 1978 and 1998, and in the second phase in 1982; they did not pass the second round of sixteen in 1990 and 2006, or the quarter- finals in 1934, 1986, 1994 and 2002. Regarding the UEFA European championship, they did not manage to qualify for the 1968, 1972, 1976 or 1992 editions; they were eliminated in the first phase in 1980, 1988 and 2004; and they did not get beyond the quarter-finals in 1996 and 2000, although they won the championship in 1964 and achieved second place in 1984. In the Olympic Games, they did not qualify for the Games of 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1972, 1984, 1988, 2004 or 2008; they did not get past the first phase in 1924, 1976 and 1980; and they did not pass the quarter-finals in 1928, 1968 and 1996; but they won a silver medal in 1920 and 2000 and a gold medal in 1992. The Decline of the Spanish Fury 71

Compared to the poor record of the national team, Spanish clubs and under-age national teams have had outstanding performances in diverse international and European competitions. With regard to the younger categories of the Spanish national team, some examples are the World under-20 Championship in 1999 and runners-up in the same Championship in 2003, as well as gold and silver medals at the Olympic Games of 1992 and 2000, respectively. As for club football, Spain is, with 29 titles, the most successful country in the history of European club competitions. Spanish football clubs have won 14 UEFA Champions Leagues, seven UEFA Cup- Winners’ Cups and eight UEFA Euro leagues (previously called the UEFA Cup), two more than England (12, eight and seven, respectively) and one more than Italy (12, seven and nine, respectively). Among European clubs, Real Madrid appears in first place with 12 European trophies (ten UEFA Champions League and two UEFA Euro leagues), and FC Barcelona is in third place with eight (four UEFA Champions Leagues and four UEFA Cup- Winners’ Cups). This dual trajectory of Spanish football has been the subject of constant debate among fans, news media and Spanish sports analysts over the past few decades. The axis around which this debate has revolved contains different variations of the same question: what were the reasons for the poor performance of the Spanish national team in international tournaments? And, more specifically, what happened to Spanish football players who had triumphed at their professional clubs when they put on the Spanish national team’s shirt? Two general arguments have been prevalent in the responses of fans, news media and sports analysts. The first of them, in political terms, refers to a lack of patriotism in Spanish society that is in turn reflected in the national football team. This lack of patriotism is often related to the historical process of Spain’s national configuration. Spain is a country with great ethno-territorial diversity. Its political unification occurred at the end of the 15th century through dynastic union rather than through a unitary process of territorial aggregation. Moreover, this process took place in an early phase of modern European history, centuries before the appearance of the homogenizing despotism of other European monarchies (Moreno, 1997). This explains the survival throughout Spain’s history of an intense conflict between the homogenizing efforts of the central government and the resistance of regions that saw their differential identity threatened. The 1978 Constitution consecrated a model of territorial organization, known as the State of the Autonomic Communities, which tried to reconcile the unity of the Spanish nation with the demands for greater self-government by those 72 Spanish Football and Social Change regions with strong regionalist sentiments. Consequently, Spain is currently one of the two most decentralized countries in Europe: the country is divided into 17 comunidades autónomas (autonomous communities, regions) that have responsibility in matters of education, health and social services, among others. All of the autonomous communities have the same rank and legislative competences, something that has never pleased the autonomous communities of Catalonia and the Basque Country, where an important part of the population has long asserted their right to constitute a nation separate from Spain. Taking this context into account, the first argument commonly makes a connection between the weakness of Spaniards’ feeling of national identity and the poor performance of its national football team. José Ignacio Wert summarized this line of argument in a news article published a few years ago titled ‘Patriotic Anorexia’ (Wert, 2001). According to Wert, the mediocre results of the Spanish national team are related to ‘the lack of national feeling by Spanish people’ and, more specifically, among the members of the national team. Based on declarations made by former national coaches, Wert suggests that the Spanish football players find themselves ‘suffering from a certain patriotic anorexia when they wear the name of Spain sewn into their shirts, and they seem much more motivated when they play for their clubs’. This syndrome of patriotic anorexia could be related to the discredit suffered by the Spanish national identity due to the attempts to regiment identity during the Franco regime (Moreno, 1997), as well to the growing ethno-territorial significance acquired by Spanish clubs from the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. This lack of football patriotism would have facilitated the supremacy of football clubs in Spanish society, and this supremacy would have been reinforced by two additional factors. The first is the clubs’ greater potential for renewing illusion, thanks to their possibilities of energizing the football scenario by hiring new players and coaches. The second is their competitive continuity; the national team competes seriously only every two years, while the clubs do so weekly during almost the entire year, which reinforces the emotional link with the fans (Llopis-Goig, 2006b, 2009c). The second argument, usually formulated in psychological terms, refers to the effects of the internationalization of the playing squads at Spanish clubs. According to this line of reasoning, the same circumstance that would turn them into great competitors at a European level could be negatively affecting the players’ performance on the national team. This hypothesis argues that the presence of the best football players in the world in the main clubs of the Spanish league means that the The Decline of the Spanish Fury 73 local players, in spite of having occupied positions of responsibility in lower playing levels, say junior teams, might be relegated to a secondary position in their respective teams once they reach professional maturity. This situation would keep them from acquiring the necessary psychological maturity to overcome the most difficult moments when competing on the national football team. This responsibility effectt would explain why the Spanish national team has often been able to overcome great difficulties in the early phases of international tournaments, but then lost their way at decisive moments in later stages, when the responsibility of the competition fell most heavily on their shoulders. What happened then at Euro 2008? Did these effects have less influence on the performance of the Spanish team, thus making it possible for them to win? Were there certain conditions that neutralized the influence of these syndromes or negative effects on the players’ game? The situation of the Spanish national team before Euro 2008 was especially controversial. The climate of opinion was characterized by strong criticism of the proposals and statements made by the national coach, a lack of self-confidence transmitted by the football players, and a strong feeling of discouragement that had affected the majority of the fans and followers of the Spanish team. A few months after the 2006 World Cup in Germany was over, the national coach, Luís Aragonés, proposed ‘an in-depth analysis of the reasons for the historical failure of the Spanish team’ (El País, 6 September 2006). On that same occasion, the Madrid player Raúl stated: ‘we have never stood up to the big encounters, and we have never found the answer’ (El País, 6 September 2006). Moreover, the lack of positive results of the national football team contrasted with other sports such as basketball, handball, water polo and indoor football, where Spanish national teams had won world championships in 2006, 2005, 2001 and 2004, respectively; this undoubtedly increased public pressure on the national football team. According to a study by Sport and Market (Cubeiro and Gallardo, 2009, p. 55) shortly before the beginning of Euro 2008, the percentage of Spanish people who showed interest in their team was 70 per cent, compared to 99 per cent in the case of Croatians and 91 per cent of Germans and Italians. Likewise, in a survey carried out by the Socio- logical Research Centre one year before this, the reason mentioned most often by the fans to justify their lack of interest was that the team’s playing was pretty poor (CIS, 2007). These perceptions might surprise those who feel tempted to judge the Spanish team’s possibilities based on the individual qualities of the most important players. Although the team continued to be threatened by weaknesses such as tactical 74 Spanish Football and Social Change disorganization, difficulty in taking the ball away, or the inability to put enough pressure on the midfielders of the opposing team (García and Martín, 2009, p. 2), no one questioned their high technical level, especially in the midfield, or the technical experience and professional maturity of players such as Cesc Fábregas, Fernando Torres, José Manuel Reina, Álvaro Arbeloa and Xabi Alonso, in a league that was as competitive as the English Premier League. It must be kept in mind, on the other hand, that many of the players on the Spanish team had already had good results in World or European championships in lower categories: Iker Casillas, Carlos Marchena and Xavi Hernández had been runners-up in the World under-20 tournament in 1999; Cesc Fábregas, a runner up in the World under-17s; Fernando Torres, double champion of Europe at under-17 and under-19 levels; Andrés Iniesta, runner up in the World under-20s and champion of Europe at under-18 and under-19 levels; David Silva, Sergio Ramos and José Manuel Reina, runners-up at European under-19 level (Reina also won the bronze medal in the World under-17 tournament in 1997); and Carles Pujol, a silver medallist with the Olympic team in 2000. Furthermore, if that were not enough, the majority of the members of the national team had obtained important victories with their respective clubs: Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos with Real Madrid, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández with FC Barcelona, Cesc Fábregas with Arsenal, Fernando Torres with Liverpool, Marcos Senna with Villarreal, and David Villa with Valencia CF. However, the team’s clumsy and uneven playing in the qualifying phase – when they had to face not very difficult rivals such as Northern Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Latvia and Liechtenstein – was not only fresh in the memories of Spanish fans, but also in the minds of the team members themselves, and it kept them from having much hope of winning any significant titles while wearing the national shirt. Moreover, the memories of the defeats against Portugal at Euro 2004 and against France at the 2006 World Cup were still very much alive. Therefore, the trajectory of the past few years and the reigning climate of opinion shaped forecasts about the Spanish team’s chances at Euro 2008; no one was predicting victory, and the players themselves recognized this. The goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, for example, stated that he never thought he could win anything at all with the Spanish team. The FC Barcelona midfielder, Xavi, also pointed out shortly before the tournament that they were ‘used to watching the finals on the couch’ (García and Martín, 2009, pp. 7–8). Thus, there was a decidedly negative self-perception about the team’s possibilities, a feeling of inferiority or incapacity that did not go unnoticed The Decline of the Spanish Fury 75 by the fans and journalists and acted as a type of self-fulfilling prophecy: if the members of the team did not believe they could reach a certain objective, then they would not reach it, probably because they would make less effort without even realizing it. Moreover, even if they reached the final phase of the Euro 2008, in the opinion of many fans and journalists, the responsibility effectt would end up rearing its head in the team’s decisive games, confirming the team’s negative self-perception and establishing a true vicious cycle from which it seemed impossible to escape. The reality, however, is that the Spanish national team was able to break this vicious cycle and, as is well-known, was victorious at Euro 2008. Villa was the highest scorer in the championship, in spite of not playing in the final game due to injury, and Xavi was chosen player of the tournament. Spain won six consecutive games, and the news media had nothing but praise for the team’s playing style throughout. The final outcome of the event requires, then, a change in the two main arguments expressed in the previous paragraphs, in order to understand why this victory could finally take place. First, it appears that the responsibility effectt, stemming from the internationalization of the players in the Spanish clubs, can no longer be used as an explanatory factor for the poor results of the team in the final rounds of large tournaments. On the one hand, the Spanish team’s performance in Euro 2008 tends to counter the usual argument raised. On the other hand, many of the football players in the national team’s final line-ups had responsibilities and performed leadership tasks in the professional clubs to which they belonged, whether these clubs competed in the Spanish league (where we could mention the cases of Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta [from FC Barcelona], David Villa and David Silva [playing with Valencia CF at that time] and Fernando Torres [at Atlético de Madrid at that time], or in other leagues, as in the case of Cesc Fábregas, who was playing with Arsenal at that time). Second, it seems unlikely that patriotic anorexia can continue to be attributed to the members of the Spanish national team after obtaining the victory in the UEFA Euro, in view of their commitment throughout the tournament, demonstrated both by the way they behaved on the playing field and in the statements they repeatedly made to the news media. The patriotic anorexia thesis did not seem to fit the data on the interest in the Spanish national team stemming from demoscopic studies either. According to the previously mentioned survey by the Sociological Research Centre one year before the tournament (CIS, 2007), seven out of ten football fans (69.7 per cent) were interested in the matches of the Spanish national team (31.3 per cent were very interested and 38.4 per cent 76 Spanish Football and Social Change fairly interested), and only 30.1 per cent said they were not very or not at all interested (20.3 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively). In addition, when examining why 30.1 per cent of those interested in football showed indifference to the national team games, it was found that those who did not feel represented by it made up 28 per cent. The rest of the responses were distributed among those who said that the national team’s game was poor (32.3 per cent), those who said they were not very interested in football (30.2 per cent) and those who did not answer or gave other, different responses (9.4 per cent). In summary, only 8.4 per cent of the total Spanish population of football fans were suffering from what could be considered a lack of football patriotism. The patriotic anorexia hypothesis had insufficient empirical support even before the team won the Euro 2008. The same arguments could be applied to the audiences at the national team’s games at Euro 2008. The Spanish fans who massively followed games on television did not seem to suffer from this syndrome either. Moreover, in spite of the traditional pessimism with which the fans viewed the Spanish team in international tournaments, Euro 2008 had a great following in terms of broadcast audience. The games against Russia, Sweden and Greece had television audience rates of 53.9 per cent, 58.4 per cent and 49.3 per cent, and the game against Italy reached 68.8 per cent. In the semi-finals, where the Spanish team again played against Russia, the audience share rose to 72.7 per cent, while the final against Germany had an average audience share of 80.9 per cent and registered the minute most viewed in the history of Spanish television – at least since they started to measure television audiences in Spain in 1992 – with a rate of 88.6 per cent. These data show the magnitude of audiences for the national team’s games and, therefore, would not be compatible with the idea that Spanish society could be affected by patriotic anorexia. The arguments made in the previous paragraphs show that none of the explanations commonly used to justify the poor performance of the national team can be applied to their performance at Euro 2008. However, the deactivation or disappearance of these syndromes which, as traditionally thought, had weakened the national team in international competitions was not sufficient to explain their victories at Euro 2008. To do so it is necessary to draw on two strictly sport-related arguments that will be described in the following section.

Some keys of the victory at Euro 2008

This section presents the idea that the victory of the Spanish team at Euro 2008 was due to a large degree to achieving an optimum level The Decline of the Spanish Fury 77 of group cohesion and the development of a unique playing style. The hypothesis is that the leadership of the coach, Luís Aragonés, and his decision to not include Raúl González, were the key elements in achieving both objectives. As pointed out earlier, the performance of the Spanish team in the first phase of Euro 2008 was not without complications, to the point that at times its qualification was considered quite unlikely. The most critical moment in this process occurred on 6 September 2006, when Spain was beaten by Northern Ireland 3–2 in a game played in Belfast. The image of the Spanish national team reached a negative nadir, and the news media were very critical of the coach’s strategies. The national team found itself in an extreme situation, and surely the coach must have thought a change was necessary to redirect its uncertain path. After the game with Northern Ireland, Aragonés probably thought that only by changing a large part of the team could he alter the team’s image and playing style. This renovation allowed him to introduce new players and try other systems of play. The group that had been playing up to that point did not allow him to take advantage of the technical quality and athletic potential of each of the players. Only by introduc- ing a significant change in the players’ list could there be a change in the national team’s scheme of play. Three weeks after the game with Northern Ireland, Aragonés offered the news media a list of players selected for the game against Sweden. Among the missing players, there were some noteworthy names, such as Joaquín Sánchez, Fernando Morientes, Santiago Cañizares, Michel Salgado and, especially, Raúl González, one of the few players who had performed with credit in the disastrous game against Northern Ireland. On the one hand, for 15 years Raúl had been an essential player for both Real Madrid and the national team. His contribution to Real Madrid was decisive in ending Real Madrid’s 32-year title-less streak in the Champions League. Moreover, with Raúl, Real Madrid won five Spanish league titles. At that time, Raúl was the highest scorer in the history of the Spanish national team, with 44 goals. However, even though his capacity for sacrifice, his confidence in himself, and his orientation toward victory made him the truest and most updated version of the Spanish fury, Raúl had never won a trophy with the national team. By leaving Raúl González out of the team, Aragonés was passing a message to the selected players that they could provide as much or more than Raúl, and that team effort and discipline were core requirements for playing in the team. His decision became a source of positive reinforcement for the selected players, who felt they had been recognized 78 Spanish Football and Social Change because of the trust the coach had shown in them. These changes, however, were not immediately effective, and in the following weeks the team lost against Sweden (2–0) and against Romania (0–1; although in the meantime they won a friendly game against Argentina 2–1). In five weeks they had lost three games. The pressure on and criticism of Aragonés and the Spanish Football Federation in the news media reached its highest level, and the fans became more and more disil- lusioned. In time, however, the decisions made by Aragonés began to produce results. In 2007, the first manifestations of change were seen. Spain began to gradually solidify as a team and improve its performance. That year, after a significant victory in a friendly game against England at Old Trafford, Spain beat Sweden (3–0) and Northern Ireland (1–0) and managed to qualify for Euro 2008, in spite of a defeat against Iceland. Whether or not he was aware of it, Aragonés had achieved two out- comes that would reach their highest level during Euro 2008: raising the self-esteem of his players and creating the necessary psychological conditions to form a cohesive group. The Spanish team’s results in Euro 2008 could hardly have been bettered: the team surpassed all of its rivals, achieving a margin of 12 goals in their favour as opposed to only three against them. Apart from showing a high level of self-esteem at decisive moments in the tournament (made evident by their comeback in the first game against Russia and by beating Italy on penalties), the team showed a high level of group cohesion, both in the dynamics of their game and in the relationships established between the players during the shared experience. A culture of belonging and equity was developed that reinforced ties and increased the self-esteem and the competitive motivation of the players. Xabi Alonso later recalled that, during the qualification phase, after the game against Denmark, ‘the team spirit, optimism and confidence improved. That victory helped us to believe in ourselves’ (Burns, 2013, p. 300). Fans and players perceived that, in contrast to what had occurred before, no one was indispensable to the team, and the distinction between first and second-string players had become blurred. The national team became a working team, both on and off the playing field. In order for this to happen, the coach’s management of the group was essential, not only with regard to the increase in self- esteem and the reinforcement of group cohesion, but also in setting objectives and managing the individual expectations of the players. There were numerous rotations of players that made it possible for apparently indispensable players like David Villa (whose injury allowed Cesc Fábregas to enter the game in the final against Germany) to stop The Decline of the Spanish Fury 79 being part of the eleven first-string players without the team suffering for it. If on other occasions the national team had been the victim of overestimating its possibilities (in Euro 2004 in Portugal against the host team and in the 2006 World Cup in Germany against the French team, the world champion at the time), on this occasion Aragonés set specific and quantifiable objectives that militated against any previous vagueness. There was no talk, then, of ‘winning the World Cup’, but rather of achieving objectives little by little: ‘first qualify for the final phase; second, be first in the knock-out phase; third, go on to quarter- finals; fourth, win the semi-final; and fifth, beat Germany’ (García and Martín, 2009, p. 47). The management of the group was the key to raising the self-esteem of the players and achieving enough group cohesion to reinforce the competitive potential of the squad. However, this was not the only achievement of the Spanish coach: by forming a cohesive working team, he established a foundation for the Spanish team to give birth to a new playing style, the so-called ‘tiki-taka’. By leaving Raúl González out of the team, in addition to elevating self-esteem and improving group cohesion, he managed to get rid of the last holdout of the Spanish fury. Raúl’s reputation and influence would have impeded the emergence of the playing style that would underpin victory of the Spanish team at Euro 2008; without him, ‘tiki-taka’ would reign supreme. The term ‘tiki-taka’ had been referred to at times during the 1980s by coaches such as José María Maguregui or Javier Clemente, who were critical of the playing style due to its lack of directness. However, it was the late journalist Andrés Montes who used the term to extol the virtues of the Spanish team’s game when he began to broadcast their games for the Spanish television station La Sexta. Compared to the Spanish fury playing style – which featured great physical power and prowess and an equally important display of impetuosity and virility – what could be defined as the ‘tiki-taka’ style is based on sharp passing, speed and slipping one’s marker. ‘Tiki-taka’ is a playing style that values skilful control of the ball and passing to feet, all based on strong technical superiority in the midfield. Moreover, and even though it may seem contradictory, this style also requires a dense blocking web based on a strong team mentality, so that all the players must feel important and equally valued within the scheme of the game, and that none of them should dominate play at the expense of others. Aragonés probably assumed that these conditions would not have existed if he had selected Raúl. The Real Madrid forward’s presence 80 Spanish Football and Social Change could have made it difficult for the group to develop and reinforce a new playing style, because of his reputation, leadership and influence on and dominance in play. The national coach probably also thought the presence of Raúl on the national team would have been technically counter-productive. Raúl’s way of understanding and playing football, based on daring, engagement and struggle, brought him closer to the Spanish fury paradigm than to ‘tiki-taka’. Looking at it in this way, one can understand why the highest scorer in the history of the national team did not fit into the new team and its new playing style. The setup of this new playing style, on the other hand, cannot be considered exclusively a product of the imagination of the national coach. It is a style that, as pointed out previously (Menor, 2008, p. 22), has its roots in the style developed by FC Barcelona when it was coached by Johan Cruyff in the 1990s. It was based on the idea of the team, a balance between all the lines, and putting on a good collective performance, and it was admired all over Europe. The style of ‘tiki-taka’, therefore, can be seen as an evolution of the style of that Barcelona team, based on control of the ball, defence through possession, sharp passing, accurate kicking and speed. From that moment on, the Spanish public’s ideal football player was no longer José Antonio Camacho; this role was now filled by Pep Guardiola. Thus there was a transition from a model based on the giving and self-sacrificing player who stood out from his teammates for his daring and grit, to a model of a refined team player with high technical ability and a team-based vision of the game (Menor, 2008). The philosophy of this playing style has gradually extended in the Spanish football imagination to the point that currently the followers of the main clubs require the teams to put on a show of high-class skill and entertainment. Winning a title is not enough, unless it is achieved through excellent play; this became evident with the firing of the pragmatic Fabio Capello as the coach of Real Madrid after winning the 2006–7 League. Another key to this national team’s new playing style was the heterogeneity of the group. While in previous international line-ups, the eleven starting players were dominated by the central axes of some of the major teams in the Spanish leagues, the list of players selected by the national coach for Euro 2008 was not dominated by players from Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, and it included five debutants, as well as players from teams with modest budgets like Getafe CF, Real Zaragoza, RC Mallorca and Villarreal CF. The balance of players from different clubs, ages and levels of experience made it possible for the team to be open to a new playing style. The Decline of the Spanish Fury 81

The FIFA World Cup 2010 and UEFA Euro 2012

To the surprise of a country still euphoric after the victory, Luís Aragonés resigned from his position as the national coach immediately after Euro 2008 was over. His rough character and the many controversies caused by his statements to the press had earned him a large number of detrac- tors who, in spite of the Euro 2008 victory, did not cease in their efforts to make him leave the team. In any case, the decision to leave the national team must have been made much earlier, because four days after the tournament was over, Aragonés was presented as the coach of Fenerbahçe in Turkey. The Spanish football federation then made the decision to choose Vicente del Bosque as the national team’s coach. Del Bosque had had a trajectory of success in Real Madrid. As a player, he won five league titles between 1974 and 1980. As the coach, in four years he achieved two Champions Leagues, two Leagues, a Spanish Super Cup, a European Super Cup and an Intercontinental Cup. Curiously, del Bosque was replaced as the coach of Real Madrid the day after winning his last league title with the club. David Beckham had been hired a week earlier, and the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, thought del Bosque’s image did not fit the galactic project he was initiating. The good sense and conciliatory nature of Vicente del Bosque were decisive attributes in the management and renovation of a team that had achieved an historic victory in 2008. As soon as he took charge of the national team, he indicated that he was going to continue with the same game plan. In spite of having been linked to Real Madrid during most of his professional career, Vicente del Bosque did not hesitate to increase the presence of Barcelona players on the national team at a time when the Catalan club had begun a serious winning streak. After an extraordinary qualification phase, the national team reached the World Cup in South Africa as favourite to win the tournament. The beginning of the competition was, however, somewhat disappointing, especially because of the defeat to Switzerland in the first game. The team received criticism for their lack of speed and limited capacity to look for open spaces. However, del Bosque did not allow the pressure to affect him, and he reacted sensibly to the initial criticisms, holding regular meetings with the players and insisting on his ideas about how the national team should play. The team improved their game until reaching semi-finals, where a brilliant young German team that had just scored eight goals against England and Argentina were awaiting them. Although Spain’s victory was not overwhelming (1–0), the game was an extraordinary exhibition of creativity and tactical sense that showed 82 Spanish Football and Social Change that the Spanish team had recovered its game path. The most difficult obstacle had been overcome, as the other finalist in the tournament, Holland, had a team that was far from playing the ‘total football’ that had led it to the peak of world football in previous decades. Curiously, these ideas had now taken shape in Spanish football, where Johan Cruyff had brought them to FC Barcelona, where they would influence Pep Guardiola, who would apply them in his period as coach of the Catalan team and earning the admiration of all Spanish society. Spain continued to display this type of play, the ‘tiki-taka’, which was the opposite of its traditional football tradition, the fury. The players of FC Barcelona were the backbone of the national team, but there were others from other teams and, especially, Real Madrid. Moreover, some of them had progressed considerably as footballers due to their experiences in foreign leagues, especially in the case of those who played in the English Premier League, where they had the opportunity to become physically stronger and take on responsibilities at a level they may not have reached if they had continued in Spain. The national team also arrived at Euro 2012 as a candidate for the title. The games they played after winning the World Cup in South Africa had been characterized by an elegant playing style and great technical facility based on passing and possession. Initially, however, it seemed that the Spanish team had begun to feel the weight of being the favourite. Spain’s socio-political and sport scenario, moreover, showed some signs that differentiated it from what had surrounded the national team two years previously. At a sporting level, the recent defeats of FC Barcelona and Real Madrid in different semi-finals of the Champions League, against Chelsea and Bayern Munich respectively, showed that the two main suppliers of human capital to the national team had their weak points. Furthermore, Guardiola, the ideologue of the FC Barcelona style that inspired the national team, had decided to take a sabbatical year from the Catalan club. All of this occurred in a context in which the rivalry between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in the Spanish league had reached its highest level, so that players from both clubs had reached the end of the season physically and psychically exhausted. At a socio-political level, the country was being hit by the devastating consequences of the international and European economic crisis. The national debt and high unemployment had placed Spain at the edge of collapse, and any spark of optimism derived from the victory in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa had disappeared completely (Burns, 2013, pp. 347–9). In the first game of Euro 2012, the Spanish national team drew 1–1 with Italy. The result of the game and the apparent disappearance of The Decline of the Spanish Fury 83 some of the characteristic elements of the ‘tiki-taka’ game raised signs of alarm. After an easy victory against Ireland, the game against Croatia became a true experience of suffering that would not dissipate until minute 88, when Navas scored the goal that gave the Spanish team victory. Some mass media began to question del Bosque’s ideas, and they even charged that the Spanish national team’s game was now boring. The players continued to show clear technical quality, but they seemed to lack their earlier determination and orientation toward victory. However, Spain eliminated France in the quarter-finals (2–0) and then Portugal in the semi-finals, although in the latter case it had to win on penalties. The final against Italy was another story; with a copybook exhibition of ‘tiki-taka’, Spain won 4–0.

Conclusions

This chapter has offered an analysis of the origin and evolution of the identity and playing style of the national team since it played its first official game in the Antwerp Olympic Games in 1920. The analysis has used the stereotype of the Spanish fury as the common thread, and was divided into four main sections. After dedicating the first section to describing the main milestones that have marked the history of the national team from its birth to Euro 2008, the second part reviewed the performance of the national team and presented the two most frequent arguments used to explain its poor performance in international competitions: the patriotic anorexia syndrome and the responsibility effect. These two arguments continued to be commonly used during the period before Euro 2008, where the Spanish national team faced critical moments that endangered its qualification for the final round of the tournament. As explained in the second section of this chapter, early indicators led to the conviction that the Spanish team’s performance in the European championship was going to be quite poor, as the team suffered from a lack of self-esteem and was not able to develop an effective playing style. The final outcome of the European tournament, however, was quite different. Spain won the final against Germany and was proclaimed champion, with a playing style that received praise from the fans and news media throughout the world, and that seemed to be the antithesis of the Spanish fury style. These events have made it necessary to question the applicability of the patriotic anorexia syndrome and the responsibility effectt as explanatory factors for the Spanish team’s performance. Other factors, then, must have been the keys to the team’s victory, and 84 Spanish Football and Social Change these factors were analysed in the third section of this chapter. Two main elements were presented, whose role may have been decisive in the triumph of the Spanish team: achieving an optimal level of group cohesion and the development of their own playing style, called the ‘tiki-taka’ style. The hypothesis developed in this chapter is that achieving both aspects required the leadership and group management of the coach, Luís Aragonés, as well as his decision not to include Raúl González from Real Madrid in the squad. The suggested relevance of these two aspects as explanatory factors for the victory of the Spanish selection in Euro 2008 does not imply that the patriotic anorexia syndrome and the responsibility effectt are completely irrelevant in explaining the results obtained by the national team in past decades. What the victory in this European tournament points to is the importance of the coach’s decisions about which players are able to adopt the new ‘tiki-taka’ style. These decisions managed to isolate the team from any possible influence that these two syndromes or effects may have had on Spanish teams in the past. The appearance of the ‘tiki-taka’ as the national team’s playing style, however, is not something that can be attributed exclusively to the influence of the national coach. It is a philosophy of football that has been developing in Spain over recent decades, based on a wide range of influences. The most direct and visible of these would probably be the ‘total football’ practised by the Netherlands in the second half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. This playing philosophy reached FC Barcelona via its coach, the former Dutch international Johan Cruyff, in the 1990s, and it reappeared later at the same club under Pep Guardiola in the late 2000s. However, while FC Barcelona had already begun to develop this playing style when Spain won UEFA Euro 2008, it must be remembered that Guardiola did not become the Catalan club’s coach until the 2008–9 season. Therefore, the playing style in the recent victories of the Spanish national team is also the product of a social context which includes a range of historical influences on Spanish football, among them those originating from South America, whose footballers have a long history in Spanish football. Although the victories of the national team in the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 have only increased the European and worldwide hegemony of Spanish football, the tipping point in its history was the victory in Euro 2008. The coach who followed Luís Aragonés as the head of the Spanish national team, Vicente del Bosque, showed his conviction from the beginning that it was necessary to continue with the same playing The Decline of the Spanish Fury 85 style, making only those changes and modifications that were strictly necessary to maintain it. Probably no other event in the recent past has affected the daily lives of Spaniards as much as the three consecutive victories of the national team. All aroused waves of popular euphoria that materialized in numerous street celebrations all over the country, participated in by countless thousands of people. Along with this collective euphoria, there were also newly awakened feelings of patriotism, solidarity and comradeship. All of this fostered a strengthening of national identity in a country where ‘Spain’ does not mean the same thing for all Spaniards. The national team’s victories were celebrated more often than not by the waving of national flags, expressing patriotic sentiments that went beyond political and academic debates about national identity. Thus, football became an instrument of rebuilding a unity that had been weakened, even broken, by a range of political actors over many decades. After the victories politics and sport were firmly linked in an event that caused more flag-raising and waving than the day of National Celebration or Constitution Day (Iglesias de Ussel, 2011, p. 95). In a country that – as pointed out by the sociologist Enrique Gil Calvo – lacks a national culture (El País, 13 June 1998), the national football team ‘was the only symbol capable of expressing the common collective identity, filling citizens with emotion due to feeling like members of the same collective’. ‘Without faith, or love for country,’ continued Gil Calvo, ‘only their faith in football and love for the national team allowed them to feel proud of being Spanish.’ 5 The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs

In recent decades, Spanish football clubs have experienced an extraordinary transformation process that has decisively influenced their organizational structure. This chapter uses a sociological approach to study Spanish football clubs’ origin and evolution throughout the 20th century and until the present day. It includes an analysis of their recent processes of structural differentiation and their progressive transformation into transnational corporations, as well as an examination of the fans’ perspective on these transformations. Since the 1960s, the sociology of organizations has placed increasing emphasis on the influence of the environment, understood as the set of circumstances the organization must manage (Hodge et al., 2003). Every organization has an environment composed of the state, its clients or end-users, the resources it needs, and the network of organizations with which it associates to a greater or lesser degree, all of which decisively influences its organizational structure. Accordingly, the analysis presented in this chapter is based on the hypothesis that the clubs’ structural configuration and differentiation processes constitute a response to their environment. In sports organizations, the environment is composed of other organizations, such as governmental organs, other football clubs, sport promotion entities, counterparts at the local, national or international level, educational institutions and sponsors, as well as other types of entities, all of them essential for achieving the organization’s objectives (Slack and Hinings, 1987). In the case of a Spanish professional football club, its environment is composed of the Real Federación Española de Fútboll (RFEF, Royal Spanish Football Federation), the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA International Football Federation), the Liga Nacional de Fútbol

86 The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 87

Profesional (LNFP, League of Professional Football), the Consejo Superior de Deportes (CSD, Superior Sports Council), the National Committee of Referees, the clubs with whom they compete in diverse tournaments or championships and those that buy and sell players, the associations of fans and followers of each club, the players’ agents, the television channels with which the clubs negotiate the rights to televise the games, and the suppliers of sports material and equipment, among many others. This set of organizations forms a network that has a decisive influence on the club’s organizational development. The analysis of the environment is essential in the study of organizations, and it is a central element in the contributions of diverse schools of thought whose work is included under the category of contingency theory. Given that environments are varied and changing, the optimal organizational set-up will depend on the specific environment in which each organization carries out its activities (Scott, 2003). Thus, because the structure of an organization is the result of the pressures of the environment, which is uncertain, the structural configuration can be considered a way to deal with this uncertainty (Coller and Garvía, 2004, p. 40). Contingency theories also propose that the formal structure of an organization is a function of the way it responds to its surroundings. Thus, the broad diversity of existing organizational forms is a result of the way each organization adapts to the demands of a specific environment. Each organization is a system whose development follows a process of division and establishment of differentiated but coordinated sub-units, in order to guarantee the viability of the system (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). This process of differentiation reflects an attempt to organize and assign functions and tasks to the sub-units that make up the organization. Each sub-unit deals with different environments and is affected by a variety of influences that are specified in distinct structures and performance guidelines (Coller and Garvía, 2004, p. 45). Differentiation and coordination are, then, the basis of the structural configuration undertaken by each organization in adjusting to the environment. The environmental tendencies or pressures that have the most influence on the clubs’ configuration and structure involve the processes of professionalization, commodification and globalization.

1) Professionalization responds to a search for greater performance in carrying out tasks and functions, and it usually means the club’s management is placed in the hands of specialized technicians and professionals (Heinemann, 1999). It is, then, a response to the growing 88 Spanish Football and Social Change

complexity of the environment, and it is manifested in a greater differentiation of functions, action planning, coordination among different areas, and the search for greater efficacy and efficiency. However, the professionalization of sports clubs has disadvantages, such as conflicts with organizational values or members’ loss of connection.

2) The clubs’ commodification processes arise historically when the increase in internal expenses makes it necessary to look for external sources of financing, such as sponsorship, merchandising and the sale of audio-visual or publicity rights (Gómez and Opazo, 2007). This search has led the clubs to create and strengthen their commercial departments and develop marketing strategies with the general public and their followers (O’Brien and Slack, 2004). However, commodification processes can threaten the club’s autonomy, for example, in the case of setting schedules for broadcasting televised games, where audience-attracting criteria carry more weight than technical-sport criteria.

3) Finally, the globalization tendencies that have affected the entire planet in recent decades have also had a strong impact on the configuration and performance patterns of the main football clubs. The clubs have experienced a growing transnationalization, shown by the creation of foreign subsidiaries and the establishment of global alliances, as well as the emergence of supranational and transnational tournaments (Villena, 2003, p. 261). This process also affects the composition of clubs, which are increasingly multicultural, and is connected to the globalization of audiences and the unstoppable formation of a global sport-media complex (Maguire, 1999; Rowe, 1999).

The analysis presented in this chapter is based on two fundamental assumptions of contingency theory, and takes into account the characteristics of the environment mentioned in the previous paragraphs. However, to the more recent influence of these tendencies, it would be necessary to add more historical aspects of a social, political and economic nature. For this reason, the next section of this chapter analyses the rise and historical evolution of football clubs in Spain, including the main periods when a substantial modification took place in their character and structural configuration. The analysis begins with the process of creating and structuring the football clubs as sporting sociability associations in the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries. It then focuses on the configuration they developed in the Francoist The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 89 period, when the sport policy of the regime took away the privacy and autonomy clubs had enjoyed up until that time. The next sections examine the clubs’ main responses to their major environmental challenges: first, their conversion into public limited sports companies at the beginning of the 1990s; and second, their progressive transformation into transnational corporations and the structural differentiation of the main football clubs in Spain. The chapter concludes with a section that presents the fans’ perspective on the main changes to clubs in recent years, especially regarding their ownership and management.

The origin and evolution of Spanish football clubs

In Spain, sport practices began to spread during the second half of the 19th century under the influence of the British model of the sporting club. The first clubs appeared in urban spaces due to the presence of British professionals associated with industrial or port activities, as shown by the geographical locations of the first clubs: Huelva Recreation Club in 1889, Athletic Club of Bilbao in 1898 and FC Barcelona in 1899. The historians Xavier Pujadas and Carles Santacana have identified the characteristic traits of the majority of the sporting clubs that emerged at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (Pujadas and Santacana, 2003, pp. 510–13). First, they refer to the adoption of the guidelines of the first British clubs: equality among the players, the social prestige of the members of the boards of directors, and the competitive ethos that governed members’ behaviour. The second trait has to do with the private nature of these clubs, although in reality they acted as sociability platforms and had a collective function. Third, the first Spanish clubs promoted amateurism as a central value, so that the players themselves were the managers and organizers of the club. This characteristic was accompanied by a strong commitment to the club entity and functioned as a means of social selection, creating barriers that made it all but impossible for those of modest social origins to participate. A fourth characteristic of these first clubs was an internal structure based on strict regulations that, over time, experienced a certain degree of democratization and moved toward a distinction between practising and governing members. However, given that even the most elitist clubs needed to create a minimal competitive framework that would guarantee the continuity of their activities, sports were immersed in dynamic growth and transformation. The promotion of the diffusion of the social benefits associated with sport practice also influenced this process, although what really 90 Spanish Football and Social Change produced its social dawning was its transformation into a show for the masses. Football’s transformation into entertainment brought about the progressive establishment of professionalism and its regulation by the Spanish Football Federation in 1926, without any state intervention at all (Martialay, 1996). The amateur model began to face crisis, which strongly influenced the internal organization of the football clubs. The figure of the socially elite sportsman in the second decade of the 20th century would give way to the image of the young idol of the masses represented by successful professionals. An incipient dynamic of sign- ings, contracts and transfers began, which would gradually lead the clubs to focus more and more on producing a show and less on promoting a certain sporting practice (Pujadas and Santacana, 2003). The configuration that characterized football clubs from their origins until the first third of the 20th century was profoundly affected after the Civil War (1936–39) due to the establishment of the Franco regime (1939–75). A radical change occurred in the conception of sport, which went from being part of civil society to becoming integrated into the structure of the state. As mentioned in previous chapters, sport organizations came to depend on a state organism created in 1938, the Delegación Nacional de Deportes (National Sports Delegation), which would later be called the Consejo Nacional de Deportes (National Sports Council), controlled by the Falange Española Tradicional y de las JONS, the regime’s only political party. Thus, sport clubs and federations lost their private character, autonomy and democratic ethos, experiencing an inversion in their ways of functioning. The National Sports Delegation was in charge of naming the main directors of the national federations, and they, in turn, named the regional delegates, who later ratified the managers of the clubs (Santacana, 2011, p. 211). The subordination of the football clubs to the apparatus of the state meant the loss of their organizational autonomy and the dismantling of their leadership structures. This process seriously affected the clubs’ internal functioning and signified the disappearance of the liberal and democratic character of the clubs as associations made up of equals. Members lost the ability to choose the club’s managers, as they were nominated by organs that ultimately depended on Franco’s regime. Although this situation changed slightly in the 1950s (with the introduction, for example, of elections by delegates), it continued to be obligatory for the election of the general assembly of members to be ratified by the corresponding sport federation, which maintained the right to directly name the members of the board if the members’ initial proposal had been rejected twice (Pujadas and Santacana, 2003). The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 91

For the clubs, this restructuring of the sport system meant the loss of a system based on democratic participation and a change in the type of relationship they maintained with the sport federation. Until that time, it had been based on agreement between free and equal entities, but from then on they became dependent on the National Sports Delegation. The clubs’ statutes had to include their subordination to the dispositions and hierarchical power of the National Sports Delegation. Otherwise, their legality would not be recognized, and their participation in sport competitions would not be authorized. The clubs’ structures gradually adapted to the requirements of Franco’s regime during its almost four decades in power. With the arrival of democracy, the clubs began a reconversion process that allowed them to recover their previous status, even though their organizational culture and functioning guidelines were impregnated with the authoritarianism that characterized the regime. After the death of General Franco in 1975, a process of defascistization of football – and of sport in general – began, which had its launching point in the dissolution of the Spanish Falange (in March 1977) and in the later abolition of the National Sports Delegation. The sport press agitated to accelerate this process and make sure that football was not an exception in the transition process to democracy that practically all institutions were experiencing. In 1977, rules were established for the future election of the President and Executive Committee in the statutes of the Spanish Royal Football Federation (Shaw, 1987, pp. 222–3). The restoration of democracy in the football clubs meant that every adult member, man or woman, had the right to vote in the election of the President of the club, as long as he or she had been a member for three years. The President, in turn, chose the vice-presidents and managers of the club. The system passed was not the most democratic system imaginable and, in fact, in the following years continued to be criticized by the more nonconformist sectors of the sport press, but it meant at least a partial adaptation of football to the new democratic context. This was not, however, the only pressure to which Spanish football adapted. It also adapted to other tendencies that had manifested themselves earlier, although from that moment on – once football and sport generally had been freed from the political corset of the dictatorship – they began to express themselves with greater force. The following sections examine the influence of the processes of professionalization, commodification and globalization on the organizational structure and configuration of the Spanish football clubs. 92 Spanish Football and Social Change

The transformation of the clubs into sport corporations

If we keep in mind that the football clubs originated at the end of the 19th century as non-profit associations, their later conversion to corporations has to be considered one of the most relevant aspects in the analysis of their recent structural transformation. This section examines the process that led to this change in legal status, detailing the social and economic situation that fostered it, as well as the reasons for putting it into practice. Although the law that created the change in the legal status of football clubs was passed in 1990, in the middle of the previous decade there had already been talk of the advantages of allowing those who develop a professional sport activity to adopt a corporate model. At the end of the 1982 World Cup in Spain, clubs had acquired considerable debt due to investments made in remodelling and preparing stadiums for this event. Shortly before the end of the 1980s, the outstanding debts of the first and second division clubs had already reached more than 120 million euros. There was a great need for financing, but their financial insolvency kept them from accessing new credit unless their managers presented personal guarantees. This situation was not new, as at the end of the 1970s it had been argued that the financial situation of Spanish football was unsustainable. In a book published in 1980 with the significant title of El fútbol sin leyy (Football without Law), the Spanish journalist Julián García-Candau stated that ‘due to the poor management of its directors, Spanish football is completely bankrupt. The accounts of all the clubs present shocking deficits’ (García-Candau, 1980, p. 83). The situation of the football clubs obligated the state to erase their debts by approving the first so-called plan de saneamiento (clean-up plan), which basically consisted of granting subsidies to the sport entities (Palomar, 1999). This first clean-up plan was approved in 1985, and it was put together without any norm supporting it in the sport legislation at that time. It meant that 2.5 per cent of the revenues from football pools were used to finance the restructuring of the clubs. Therefore, the measure was designed to reshape the management structure of the clubs with public funds; however, this measure was ineffective, as it coincided with the appearance of new types of gam- bling, producing a decline in the predicted income. This reduction in the income from the pools coincided with deficient management in clubs and the lack of legal responsibility of their executive commit- tees. The Consejo Superior de Deportes attributed the clubs’ delicate The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 93 financial situation to their legal status: a type of non-profit association that had been shown to be ineffective in managing professional sport (Barajas, 2007, p. 111). Therefore, the Consejo considered it necessary to promote a new legal-social instrument that would allow the clubs to function as professional businesses with legal responsibility. One of the main deficiencies of sport clubs was the lack of strictures on economic irresponsibility, which induced many clubs to take on expenses beyond their incomes, leading to an increase in their debt. When the financial situation became unsustainable, managers stepped down from their posts and left the club in a state of bankruptcy. The 1990 Sport Law (Law 10/1990 of 15 October) set up a second restructuring plan for professional football which stipulated that a higher percentage of the income from the pools would be ceded to the football clubs. More importantly, it created a new legal framework in which the fan clubs were separated from the professional clubs (in the first and second division of Spanish football and the ACB Basketball League). The clubs became Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas (SAD, Public Limited Sports Companies), a new legal structure that was accompanied by a series of conditions and controls and that signified the gradual transformation of the old clubs into business organizations (Bertomeu, 1993; Palomar, 1999; García et al., 2011). Although the 1990 Sport Law proposed the general transformation of all the clubs participating in professional sport competitions into SADs, an amendment to the law allowed for those clubs with a positive balance sheet – according to audits carried out from the 1985–6 season to the 1989–90 season on behalf of the National Professional Football League (LNFP) – could maintain their existing legal structure. Accordingly, by 1992 all of the clubs in the first and second divisions became SADs, with the exception of Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Athletic de Bilbao and CA Osasuna, which had verified positive balance sheets. They decided to maintain their club status, although they were going to have to follow the same economic control rules, and they were even going to have the norms for sectorial adaptation from the General Accounting Plan applied to them (Barajas, 2007). The transformation of the football clubs into SADs led to the incorporation of institutional investors or shareholders and, therefore, raised the possibility of changes and divisions in matters of ownership and control. On the other hand, it increased the clubs’ transparency and signified the progressive establishment of professionalized business management structures, based on which the economic management of the club would be optimized. However, there was also a loss of the 94 Spanish Football and Social Change associative and participatory structure that had characterized these entities from their origins, where the members could participate in club assemblies and meetings and choose the members of the Executive Committee as long as they were up to date on paying their dues. The members were substituted by shareholders and subscribers, the former linked to the club through the purchase of shares and the latter through the purchase of a yearly subscription with which they obtained access to certain league games. The system established by the 1990 Sport Law produced some technical problems as well as some doubts about its viability. However, it became consolidated thanks to the great interest football arouses in Spain and the enormous amounts of money that entered its financial environment (González-Cueto, 2000, p. 109). These circumstances led to the reform of the SAD legal regime, expressed in Law 50/98, which introduced liberalizing measures and a regimen similar to that of common public limited companies. Among other things, it eliminated restrictions due to nationality that the 1990 Sport Law had established as a requirement for shareholders, as these restrictions conflicted with European Community rights, involved discrimination based on nationality, and violated the basic principle of free circulation of capital.

Transnationalization, sectorial repositioning and structural differentiation

The consequences of the clubs’ transformation into public limited liability sports companies can clearly be seen in the economic dimensions of the football sector in Spain. As pointed out in the first chapter, Spanish football makes up 0.9 per cent of Spain’s gross national product (GNP) and about 1.2 per cent of the GNP of the services sector, figures that rise to 1.7 per cent of the general GNP and 2.5 per cent of the services sector if other indirect effects are added, such as the payment of salaries and the gross operating surplus (LFP, 2004). It must be taken into account, however, that professional football’s debt has not stopped growing in the past 15 years, and at the end of the 2010–11 season, it reached 3530 million euros (Gay de Liébana, 2012). Professional football continues to have economic losses – 225 million euros in 2013–14 – but after the recent tightening of the financial normative structure, some signs of change can be observed. According to budgets presented to the Consejo Superior de Deportes at the end of June 2013, Spanish clubs spent 650 million euros on salaries in the 2013–14 season, 100 million less than the previous season. Moreover, the number of transfers has declined The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 95 significantly and – according to Tax Collection Authority data – the fiscal debt of clubs declined by 80 million euros between March 2012 and March 2013. These data, however, do not take into account that, during the past few years, in order to avoid being denied economic support by financial entities and public administrations, clubs have resorted to new practices, such as signing up new players through investment funds. Already a dozen first and second division clubs have used these funds as instruments for obtaining the services of footballers that they otherwise would not have been able to hire. Both UEFA and FIFA, however, have announced that they intend to prohibit this practice in order to increase transparency in the market and avoid the formation of a bubble. The economic dimensions reached by the football sector are closely related to the adoption by the main clubs of management models from the business world. Globally, the first club that took this path was Manchester United, which at the end of the 1990s put marketing professionals from the sport industry in its management positions. They focused on the international expansion of the club and used the internet as a tool, so that the club’s fans around the world could access its virtual shops and interactive games (Rosaaen and Amis, 2004). During the transition to the 21st century, Manchester United was imitated by other European clubs and broadened its range of activities to sponsorships of global brands, collaboration agreements with sport clubs from other geographical areas, agreements for broadcasting audio-visual content through companies from the communications sector, and the design and start up of diverse projects related to corporate social responsibility (Ginesta, 2011, p. 149). But it was the increase in income from marketing that truly showed the football clubs’ metamorphosis into worldwide entertainment companies. It should be pointed out, however, that this path was not taken by all clubs. During the past decade there has been a large gap between the clubs that had developed an international dimension for their activities and those who, in contrast, continued to be tied to a local space. The former have gradually become global brands and act as suppliers of entertainment at a global level. Their budgets have increased extraordinarily as a result of the increase in income from audio-visual rights and marketing, allowing them to hire the best footballers and other professionals and elevate their competitive performance. In Spain, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona belong to the former group, while the rest –to different degrees – belong to the latter. The Spanish League is marked by the economic dominance of these two clubs due to the increase in their incomes from participating in the Champions 96 Spanish Football and Social Change

League, especially the final phases, and to the improvement in their television contracts (Boscá et al., 2008). According to the study carried out by the Deloitte auditors every year, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are the clubs with the highest incomes in the world (Deloitte, 2012). Real Madrid headed the Deloitte ranking in 2011, for the seventh consecutive year, with an income of 479.5 million euros, while FC Barcelona remained in second position, for the third consecutive year, with an income of 450.7 million euros. A clear example of the way the transnational processes affect these clubs is the increase in their number of followers throughout the world, which has fostered their participation in international tours and served as an additional source of income. In the same way, both clubs have developed ambitious strategies for exchanging audio-visual content with companies from the communication world, making them core components of the global sport-media complex. But the economic dimension reached by Real Madrid and FC Barcelona is not only the result of adopting the organizational structure model pioneered by Manchester United in the 1990s. It is also a reflection of the structure of Spanish professional football itself and some of its unique characteristics. Perhaps the most evident of these is the fact that the Spanish League is the only one of the five most important in Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) that has a system of individual sale of television rights for League and Cup games, allowing each club to negotiate the sale of its audio-visual rights with producers or television channels/networks. As Ginesta points out, the individual sale of television rights has various long-term consequences (Ginesta, 2011, p. 152). On the one hand, the team’s commercial attractiveness becomes the most important factor when setting the price of the audio- visual rights. On the other, at the national level, a competitive imbal- ance is produced because the enormous economic differences among the clubs allow only a few clubs to hire the best footballers. The transformations referred to above have their correlates in the differentiation processes that have been carried out in the internal and organizational structure of the clubs. A study carried out by Gómez et al. (2008) seeks to discover which functional areas the Spanish football clubs have developed and whether there is an organizational pattern that could be associated with their attempts to adapt to the environment. The study tries to identify the basic structural configuration of the 18 clubs with the greatest professional history in Spanish football, based on the division of functions, tasks and responsibilities reflected in their organizational structures. The organizational structure that The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 97 could be considered a common denominator of the clubs is the one characterized by the figure of a president, a high-level management post, which can be a general manager or a managing director, and a variable set of between two and four functional areas comprising tasks associated with some of the subsystems already mentioned, such as sport, economic-financial, communication, commercial and marketing, external relations, installations and infrastructure, legal issues and social issues. The study showed that the fact that the clubs distinguish different subsystems within their organizational charts clearly shows that, in addition to meeting the sport and economic objectives related to their main activity and their survival, respectively, they try to respond to challenges and demands that go beyond these two basic aspects (Gómez et al., 2008). This process, however, does not develop in the same way in all football clubs; in the management hierarchies of some, for example, only the sport and economic subsystems are differentiated. Between the 1996–7 and 2005–6 seasons, the average number of subsystems in the structure of the main football clubs grew from 2.6 to 4.7, which exemplifies a structural development that researchers interpret as a process of differentiation related to specific functions or tasks (Gómez et al., 2008, p. 11). This process involves a rationalization and formalization of the operations and activities performed by the club; furthermore, it reflects the way the entity constantly adjusts its structural set-up to the pressures and challenges of the environment (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). Football clubs, on the one hand, are trying to adapt to the environment when they create this functional differentiation in their organizational structures. On the other hand, the variability identified by researchers in the evolution of these structures from one season to another is a clear sign that the clubs perceive this environment as uncertain and unstable (Gómez et al., 2008, p. 12). Finally, regarding the subsystems that arise differentially in the clubs’ structure, it should be pointed out that, in addition to those directly related to the main mission – the sport and economic-financial subsystems – others emerge that clearly reflect the relationship between the organization and its environment. The clearest examples are the subsystems of communication, marketing, commercial activities, external relations and social issues. The case of the communication subsystem is especially relevant, as it is present in the majority of the football clubs, as other researchers have also highlighted (Olabe, 2009; Ginesta, 2011). On the other hand, the growing relevance of the commercial and marketing subsystem must be associated with the effects of the commodification 98 Spanish Football and Social Change process in the world of sport, as pointed out in previous research (O’Brien and Slack, 2004).

The fans’ perspective

As several authors have pointed out, to understand the effects of these changes on the fans, it is necessary to study their experiences and perceptions (Crabbe and Brown, 2004; Wheaton, 2004). Therefore, this last section offers an analysis of the Spanish fans’ opinions about the changes and transformations in the clubs in the last few decades, especially those related to their ownership and leadership structure. Next, a synthesis is presented of various qualitative studies carried out in which football fans, sports journalists and managers of various clubs were interviewed (Llopis-Goig, 2012, 2014b). As pointed out above, one of the main effects of the Sport Law (Law 10/1990 of 15 October) was the transformation of the football clubs into SADs. More than 20 years later, the majority of the fans interviewed indicate that they feel a high level of confusion about what this transformation has meant, and they are not fully aware of the consequences of the legal changes these societies bring. One interviewee said: ‘people have no idea what this thing about public limited sports companies means.’ Likewise, other interviewee stated: ‘the truth is that I don’t know either; it’s that they are now businesses.’ Both statements clearly show that some fans’ relationship with the football clubs could be viewed as ‘an act of consumption’ (Horne, 2006, p. 35). However, not all fans are completely unaware of or foreign to the legal status of the clubs. Therefore, beyond what has just been pointed out, the declarations of other interviewees should be considered, as they recognize that ‘passion for the club’ might be influencing this lack of awareness: ‘I think the fans are quite confused about it; they get carried away by their feelings and identification with the club, the shirt, and everything they usually say.’ Other interviewees think fans do not really want to accept the reality and prefer to deceive themselves, acting as if things were still the way they were in the past. One fan described it this way: ‘we fans continue to act as if things were like before, and we don’t want to know that there is a public limited sports company law that allows a guy to come and buy the club and from that time on, it’s his.’ In any case – because those who prefer to deceive themselves also feel passionate about the club – these statements are clear proof of the way ‘loyalty to the clubs continues to be an essential characteristic of football fans’ (Giulianotti, 1999; Henry and The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 99

Lee, 2004). This idea is widely accepted by researchers, and it explains why fans do not change clubs (Gray and Wert-Gray, 2012). The influence of this loyalty toward the club is so strong that the fans end up feeling part of them, regardless of who owns them. One aspect that confirms fans’ situation of confusion and self-deception is the survival of an expression from before the 1990 Sport Law: the word socios (member). As pointed out above, before the Sport Law was passed, the clubs were made up of socios (members) who could participate in periodic club assemblies and meetings and had the capacity to choose a Board of Governors. The current legal set up of the clubs as SADs does not allow for the existence of members and restricts connection with the club to the status of shareholder or subscriber. However, both of these, especially the season-ticket holders, continue to use the word ‘member’ to describe their relationship with the club. It is not surprising that they continue to use the word socio because, as pointed out earlier, the fans continue to think of themselves as ‘club owners’. In some cases, they use the term in a strictly symbolic way. Regardless of who the owner is, the fans think they are the clubs’ true owners and, therefore, can and must influence its progress. A fan described it in this way: ‘we still consider ourselves owners of the club; a football club is not a business that only belongs to the person who buys it, but instead it belongs to its fans.’ In other cases, a large part of the club’s shares belong to the fans, who become small shareholders and, therefore, continue to carry a certain amount of weight in the club’s operations. This is the case of those clubs whose capital – as there are no shareholders who hold more than 10 per cent of the capital – is dispersed among a large number of small shareholders. The feeling of symbolic ownership of the club is reinforced by a series of peculiarities of Spanish football that have a strong influence on the clubs’ management. The first has to do with the paternalistic and sometimes populist tone of some club presidents. Some fans refer to this aspect, providing ample proof of integrating what Anthony King (2002) considered the predominant sentiment in current football fans: the feeling of deception: ‘we have continued to act as if they [clubs] were ours, largely because they made us believe it by using big words and telling us that we had to contribute to saving the club, when in reality what they wanted was to do their own business.’ Another influence has been the local and regional roots of many of the clubs’ presidents. In contrast to the entrance of foreign investors, the local and regional ties of the directorial teams of many football clubs has kept the fans from fearing the loss of the clubs’ identity. They 100 Spanish Football and Social Change have remained loyal to their clubs, unlike what they think occurred in the case of some English clubs. One fan described it this way: ‘the people who control or have controlled the club have been from here, all their lives, so that they are not going to change the club’s identity or go against its traditions.’ The territorial connection, therefore, reduces the effect of the possible loss of tradition that fans could attribute to the clubs’ transformation into a SAD. This aspect distinguishes Spain (and Europe) from the United States (Hamil et al., 2000). In both cases, when faced with a decline in their income from attendance at stadiums and an increase in costs due to the hyper-professionalization of the club, the big clubs have looked for additional income through sponsors, merchandising and broadcasting rights (Williams, 2007). However, in the United States, the big leagues are organized as franchises, and the league organizers require certain economic criteria from the participating clubs. Depending on whether or not these are met, the franchises can change their geographical location, which obviously impedes the strong territorial identification that usually occurs in European countries (Horne, 2006, p. 31). However, there is a second reason for the feeling of symbolic ownership among many Spanish fans, the regional representation they attribute to the clubs. The clubs are not perceived merely as sport entities or public limited sports companies, but rather as ‘regional teams’, that is, official representatives of each region, almost the same way the Spanish national football team represents Spain. Thus, they adopt a regional representation role that is manifested in a natural way, as it is fully integrated in the common sense of the majority of the fans. In fact, the fans usually point out that on many occasions municipal and regional governments have had to economically rescue certain football clubs by giving them financial support to avoid bankruptcy and their eventual disappearance: ‘the clubs represent each region and cannot disappear; if they go bankrupt, anything will be done to save them […] town halls and regional governments have rescued a lot of clubs.’ In this sense, the image of the clubs is impregnated with what could be defined as implicitt or – paraphrasing Billig (1995) – banal regionalism. It is a sort of social mechanism that orients the perceptions of connection between a region and a football club to the point of making them seem natural. Thus, banal regionalism would reproduce the schemes of regionalism in an everyday manner, in both apparently trivial and collective rituals that develop, in this case, around football, impregnating citizens’ cognitive mindsets (Billig, 1995). The connection between local/regional governments and the football clubs is reinforced even more in the fans’ minds due to the number of The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 101 times the public authorities have acted directly or indirectly – that is, through financial institutions or entities that largely depend on municipal or regional governments – to keep foreign capital from entering football clubs. The incorporation of foreign capital in Spanish clubs is a possibility that has especially worried fans and authorities for the past few years, perhaps as a result of the Spanish public’s negative view of the Dmitry Piterman era at Racing de Santander and Alavés. During Piterman’s four years in charge of Alavés, its debt multiplied by three until it reached 23 million euros. His actions created a precedent that has served as a warning about what could occur in other clubs if they allowed the involvement of foreign investors who are not part of the tradition and sport culture of the club. However, this situation is slowly changing a decade after the modification of the limit on the purchase of shares by foreigners that the 1990 Sport Law had set at 25 per cent. In the new version of article 22 of the Sport Law established by Law 50/1998 (article 109 four), mention of the nationality of the shareholder disappeared, because restriction on nationality was seen as incompatible with the free circulation of capital stipulated in European Union treaties. During the 2010–11 season, for example, Malaga was acquired by the Qatari Sheik Abdullah Bin Nasser Al Thani, thanks to an injection of 36 million euros, while the Indian millionaire Ahsan Ali Syed bought Racing de Santander with an investment of 50 million euros, which made it the team with the third highest investment in hiring players, after Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Some interviewees believed that the arrival of foreign investors could mean the loss of the clubs’ identity, as these investors would not be ruled by the same criteria as the Spanish managers. It is accepted as something that can have a strong influence on the culture and tradition of football clubs, which shows the resigned character of many Spanish fans. Others, however, point out that the arrival of these foreign investors is inevitable, and even desirable, given the complicated financial situation of Spanish football. One interviewee stated it this way: ‘why wouldn’t it be good for them to buy the teams if they are completely bankrupt? The clubs are selling their shares to foreigners because they don’t have any money. The shareholders sell because the clubs are unsustainable.’ These results coincide with the findings of some British studies high- lighting that, contrary to what is usually recognized, foreign owners are not always rejected by the fans (Coombs and Osborne, 2012). Thus, the investigation with Spanish fans has shown that there is no direct rejection of foreign investors acquiring the control of the clubs, because 102 Spanish Football and Social Change what most concerns the fans is the future of the clubs, a future that currently faces a struggle between the leaders’ drive for sporting success and the need to guarantee the clubs’ long-term economic health (Coombs and Osborne, 2012). Therefore, if the survival of a club with serious economic difficulties can be assured by the incorporation of foreign investors, the fans seem willing to accept this as a lesser evil, which again shows the resigned character of many Spanish fans.

Conclusions

This chapter has presented an analysis of the evolution and transformations experienced by Spanish football clubs in recent decades. The study drew on a basic postulate of contingency theory, the idea that organizations develop their structural configuration and differentiation processes in response to the characteristics of their environments. On the other hand, although the study was based on the influence of commodification, professionalization and globalization, an analysis was first conducted of the main milestones in the historical evolution of the Spanish football clubs, pointing out the relevance of other types of social and political determinants. More specifically, the analysis referred, on the one hand, to the creation and structural development of football clubs as associations of sporting sociability during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century and, on the other, to the organization they acquired later during the Franco dictatorship, when the regime’s sport policy stripped them of the privacy and autonomy they had enjoyed until then. The chapter also examined the conversion of the football clubs into Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas (SAD, Public Limited Sports Companies) at the beginning of the 1990s, as well as the gradual transformation of some of them into global limited liability companies operating in the leisure sector. The sectorial commercialization and liberalization of football in a context of globalization has facilitated the transformation of the main football clubs into transnational corporations. Moreover, the growing interest in their activities at a global level has increased the value of their audio-visual rights, which has finally turned them into true factories of media content. Although this is obviously a transformation that has fundamentally affected the two main Spanish football clubs – Real Madrid and FC Barcelona – it should be mentioned that other teams are not completely isolated from this tendency. Although not all of them have acquired a global level of activity, the sector in which they now operate is leisure and entertainment, rather than merely sport. All The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs 103 of this has produced various processes of structural differentiation, such as the division of functions, the extension of organizational hierarchies, the growth of the number of subsystems, and the increasing relevance of the commercial and marketing subsystem. Finally, this chapter has provided an analysis of the fans’ perspective of the current configuration and functioning of the Spanish football clubs. Two decades after the law was passed that led to their transformation into public limited sports companies, this analysis examined fans’ opinions of the changes in the ownership and management structure of the clubs. The study presented in the last part of this chapter showed the existence of a sense of symbolic ownership of the clubs among the fans. The majority of them continue to consider themselves as members, even though the clubs’ transformation into SADs means they cannot have any role other than that of spectators. A clear example of this is the continued use of the world socio to define season ticket holders or shareholders. The paternalism and local ties of the majority of the club presidents, their strong regional symbolism and local authorities’ interest in avoiding the involvement of foreign investors as shareholders are elements that contribute to fans not being completely aware of – or preferring to deceive themselves about – the implications of the clubs’ transformation into SADs. However, many fans consider it inevitable – and even positive – for foreign capital to participate, if it guarantees what really worries them: the clubs’ survival. It is, in any case, something to which they think they should resign themselves, taking into account the threat to the clubs’ identity. 6 Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence

During the past 20 years, European football has witnessed an intense change process that has radically transformed some of its main structural characteristics. This process is related to the same tendencies that have affected other aspects of social and economic life in western societies, such as the communication technologies revolution, the progressive rationalization of work, the increase in migration, the commodification of human activity, and the development of social and economic globalization processes, to name a few of the most relevant changes. These trends are usually thought to have had a strong influence on the recent evolution of football, giving rise to a redefinition of its competitive structures (Giulianotti, 1999), the clubs’ transformation into business organizations (Walsh and Giulianotti, 2001; Moor, 2007), the formation of a global market of hyper-professionalized footballers (Lanfranchi and Taylor, 2001), and the general commercialization of the ethos that articulated the modern formation of this sport around values of fun, sport sociability and fair play (Sewart, 1987; Andrews, 2004). In this context, various authors have referred to the recent transformations in football as the new football business (Conn, 1997; Hamil et al. 1999; Morrow, 1999; Szymanski and Kuypers, 1999; Finn and Giulianotti, 2000; Garland et al., 2000; Wagg, 2004). These authors point out that the media have become the main propellers of the new football business, transforming the main clubs into ‘televised content businesses’ (Boyle and Haynes, 2004). As a result, ‘fans’ have become ‘consumers’ (King, 2002, p. 203), and the main European leagues personify the basic characteristics of a high-level sport that is the vehicle for their insatiable consumption, as well as a forum for physical enjoyment, cultural identification and festive creativity (Horne et al., 1999).

104 Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 105

The study of the aspects related to the commodification process of football has aroused interest in many European social scientists and academics, especially British ones, who in recent years have examined the influence of this process on football culture and behaviours of the fans of this sport (Giulianotti, 2002; 2005; Williams, 2006; Kennedy and Kennedy, 2012). However, in spite of the hegemony of football in the leisure activities in Spanish society, no studies have been dedicated to this topic. This chapter is situated within this field of study and presents the results of various qualitative studies carried out in the past few years that have examined fans’ opinions, behaviours and feelings about clubs in the context of the commodification of football. The chapter begins with an introductory section that presents various previous considerations of a conceptual nature. The next section analyses the continuities and changes in the feelings of identification and loyalty toward football clubs. The following section describes the progressive transformation of the relationships between fans and clubs in a space of consumption that, more specifically, will be defined as hyper-consumption. Before offering some final conclusions, a final section examines the fans’ experiences and perceptions about the main changes in the clubs’ management in recent decades, as well as their reactions and responses to these changes.

Prior considerations

In the 1980s and 1990s there were important changes in western econo- mies that signified the incorporation into the commercial sphere of large sectors that had previously been part of to the public sector – public transportation, the energy sector and telecommunications, among others. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the economic system has increasingly focused its attention on what could be considered the last sphere left to commodify: the area of culture and leisure, including cultural practices, social relations, art, sport, social movements and civic activities (Rifkin, 2000). Since then, these activities have become penetrated with and transformed by the commercial logic of the market economy. Football has not been an exception. Thus one of the most characteristics of present-day football is its strong link to commercial interests. Footballers sign contracts with their clubs for astronomical amounts; television stations make large economic investments to obtain the broadcasting rights to games; the logotypes of the sponsors are stamped on shirts and other objects sold by the clubs; the stadiums and tournaments are re-baptized with the 106 Spanish Football and Social Change names of the companies that pay for them; the commercial rights of many athletes are no longer the property of the clubs for whom they play, but instead belong to internationally managed investment funds; and cities invest large sums of money to become the sites of major football championships and tournaments, attracted by the development and economic impact they can provide. Studies dedicated to analysing the commodification of sport show considerable differences in the significance they give to this concept. Although the term is rarely defined, it is often associated with a restrictive approach that refers only to the system of production and exchange (Moor, 2007, p. 132). From this point of view, a commodity is a good that has as much use-value as exchange-value. A good, therefore, becomes a commodity when it goes from having only a use- value (satisfaction of needs) to acquiring an exchange-value (Walsh and Giulianotti, 2001, p. 55). Definitions coming from economic sociology tend to define commodification as a process of ‘transformation of commercial products into social phenomena that had not been considered in this way before’ (Slater and Tonkiss, 2001, p. 24), or as the introduction of ‘monetary exchanges for profit motives where they were not present before’ (Williams, 2005, p. 14). In the field of sport sociology, commodification is often used as a ‘container’ to integrate phenomena as varied as the inflated price of tickets to stadiums, the increase in the income from sponsors, the sale of products with the club brand, or the use of sport images in the marketing strategies and advertising campaigns of all types of companies (Horne, 2006, p. 33). Commodification is usually presented as a continuous process – rather than as a simple event – through which the social significance of an object or practice can be increasingly translated into economic terms to a greater or lesser degree (Gruneau, 1983). Other definitions go beyond the exchange process and refer to the attitudes of individuals toward objects and practices. Elizabeth Anderson, for example, points out that a good becomes a commodity when it is bought and sold, but also when it is considered an object with monetary value, even when it is not actually being bought or sold (Anderson, 1993). From this perspective, applying cost-benefit analysis to an object or a practice is already a form of making it a commodity. Moreover, considering it as a potential commodity is already an initial phase in its commodification process. When referring to football, some authors prefer to use the term hyper- commodification, in order to emphasize the transformations occurring in this sport (Walsh and Giulianotti, 2001, p. 55). This term refers both to the quantitative explosion of its economic value and to the broader Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 107 and more extensive commodification of secondary aspects, that is, those that are not strictly and directly related to this sport. Examples of the former would be the multiplication of the value of the main clubs and players, as well as the increase in the price of tickets to stadiums. The latter would be exemplified by events such as the increase in value of the income coming from the clubs’ commodification, the increase in value of the contracts for ceding audio-visual broadcasting rights to television stations or the increase in the players’ extra-football income. Perhaps the aspect that has contributed most to the commodification process of football has been the spectacular increase in the income from rights to the televised broadcast of games. It began to increase at the end of the 20th century as a result of the competition among television channels to obtain broadcast rights, especially after the appearance of the new digital platforms and pay per view. There has also been a significant increase in the income from advertising, sponsorship, merchandising and other forms of commercial exploitation, which has caused the income from ticket sales to lose importance within the clubs’ revenue structure (Barajas, 2007). In fact, according to the report prepared by the Deloitte auditing firm every year on the finances of Spanish football, in the 2010–11 season 26 per cent of Real Madrid’s income came from ticket sales and the exploitation of stadium services, while television contributed 38 per cent and marketing 36 per cent. In the case of FC Barcelona, 25 per cent of income came from tickets and exploitation of the stadium, 41 per cent from television rights and 34 per cent from marketing. The third most important club in Spain, Valencia CF, showed a greater dependence on television rights, which reached 57 per cent, while tickets were took up 23 per cent and income from marketing 20 per cent (Deloitte, 2012). These considerations about the commercial transformations in football raise various immediate questions: Has this new context affected the fans’ relationship with the clubs? Do they still identify with the clubs? Which aspects make loyalty to football clubs possible? What is it about football that currently interests and attracts fans? What do the fans think about the commercial transformation of football? Have they reacted to or developed any initiatives regarding the changes that have occurred in the football clubs’ management in the past 20 years? This chapter offers an approach to all these questions, based on the empirical material obtained from various qualitative studies carried out in recent years with fans from different clubs. In a way, it is a complement to the analysis carried out in the third chapter, where the football culture of the Spanish fans was examined from a quantitative perspective, 108 Spanish Football and Social Change paying special attention to identification with clubs. There is also a clear continuity with the analysis presented in the last section of the previous chapter, which examined fans’ opinions and points of view about the effects of the clubs’ transformation into Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas (SADs, Public Limited Sports Companies).

General transmission, regional loyalties and beyond

Qualitative studies involving fans reveal that identification with clubs continues to be the main axis around which this relationship is articulated and, therefore, the basis for behaviours such as watching televised games, attendance at stadiums or the possession and purchase of objects and products licensed by the club, that is, the group of elements that make up what is referred to in the third chapter as the football culture. One of the interviewees clearly expressed it in this way: ‘if you like football, you have to be for some team, and that leads to watching matches and being aware of everything that goes on in football.’ These habits and behaviours are strongly interconnected and often constitute a subculture or lifestyle which is part of the basis of personal identity. This is reflected in the words of a fan: ‘being for my team is a way of life, a feeling that is present in everything you do and that makes you distinct as a person.’ These types of declarations clearly show that feelings of identification with football clubs have not weakened in recent years. They continue to be important and are maintained as central axes of fans’ football cultures. The interviewees point out that loyalty toward the football clubs continues to be decisive, and has not been affected by the changes and transformations found in the new football scenario: ‘in football a lot of things have changed, and not only here, everywhere, but there is something that is there and doesn’t change, and it is the key to everything: the fans support the team, their team.’ Two aspects make it possible to understand why feelings of identification with clubs continue to be important. The first has to do with what could be considered the structure of the initiation into football consumption that has been predominant in recent decades. This initiation began in childhood and in the family setting, and it was based on a generational transmission model in which loyalty to the club was passed from parents to children. Thus there was a socialization process whereby, from very early ages, feelings of sympathy and loyalty toward the club were crystallized in young people. Many fans’ views coincide on this topic: ‘someone who has gone to the stadium from an early age, to see his/her team play, it is difficult for him/her not to do so when Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 109 he/she is an adult.’ Another fan pointed out that ‘in general, people continue the family tradition. It can happen, but it’s not normal, for the father to be for one team and the son for another, and that’s okay because it’s logical that the father made the son a fan.’ The emotional component of identification with the club linked to family socialization continues to be important among football fans. However, some fans point out that this mechanism could be losing the determinant influence it has had until now. They begin to observe signs that the process of approaching a football club is losing the verticality that once characterized it; it is becoming more pluralist. If it continues, this would give rise to football cultures that are less rooted in generational transmission and much more open to the media power of the stars, to the image of winners some mass media construct the narratives of the main clubs, and to the influence of social networks. All of this would occur in a social context in which the dynamics of horizontal socialization acquire more and more influence: ‘in football and in everything, parents today do not set the guidelines for what our children like as much, that was before, when from the time you were little they took you to the games and that was your team for life. Now it’s not like that; friends have more influence, and they spend all day with their mobiles and connected to the internet.’ In the same way, the growing economic and media power of the two most important football clubs, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, also has a strong influence on Spanish football culture and weakens the power of other social dynamics as sources of identification. This situation is reflected in the following comment: ‘many young people are fans of Barça or Real Madrid, drawn by the image of success associated with them and the attraction of their main players. So it seems like being a fan of a club is not passed from fathers to sons like it used to.’ In a similar way, another interviewee also referred to young people’s strong attraction to football celebrities: ‘nowadays, you see more young people who are crazy about Messi and Ronaldo, who are presented as gods, and I think that attracts them a lot, and it isn’t so much a feeling toward the club.’ What has just been pointed out is precisely one of the influences that some researchers have attributed to the commodification processes in the sport. This influence could be producing a modification of the elements that shape the map of football loyalties. As the market philosophy penetrates the sport, some fans begin to abandon patterns of unconditional adherence and come to identify with clubs they perceive as winners (Alt, 1983). In this context, and in order to assure the continuity of their base of social support, the clubs have no choice but to 110 Spanish Football and Social Change continue to chalk up victories or, if not, direct attention toward actions that can enthuse and generate illusion in the fans, such as, for example, signing up new players or building new stadiums. All of this in turn motivates clubs to increase their spending and economic debt. A second aspect helps to explain why feelings of identification with football clubs continue to be important in Spanish society – the fact that they have acted for many years as symbolic representatives of the territories in which they are located. As proposed in the second chapter, although this symbolic dimension initially developed, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the Basque Country and Catalonia, the transition to democracy and the resulting creation of the so-called ‘State of Autonomic Communities’ facilitated the spread of regionalist expressions to other regions such as Galicia, Andalucía and Valencia. Their main football teams progressively began to acquire the status of symbolic regional representatives. This was confirmed by a fan who recalled those years: ‘the club was associated with certain values, and in the stadium you could see banners for autonomy. They certainly were not immune to all the changes that occurred in the country.’ The fans continue to consider the regional symbolism of the clubs important, which means it is essential for understanding the reasons for fans’ feelings of unity with their football clubs. In fact, some point out that without considering this dimension it is impossible to understand the significance of games like those between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona: ‘you can’t understand a match between Real Madrid and Barça without taking into account the nationalist demands of Catalonia. All of this historical tension is there, and it’s part of the attraction of this match.’ However, the fans also point out that regional symbolism has lessened during the past few years; currently, although still important, it does not have the potency it had at the end of the 1970s, when its public expressions and manifestations reached their highest point. The fans state that football has become a spectacle offered by the entertainment business, which has made its political significance decline (but not disappear): ‘those feelings have become less intense than before; they are there, but things have changed, and football is now more entertainment, apart from the fact that it has become a big business for some, but in any case, a business. So everything from before has taken a back seat.’ However, the cases of FC Barcelona and Athletic de Bilbao are somewhat exceptional. The interviewees associate them with a higher level of regional symbolism related to the political traditions of their autonomous communities. However, this dimension has also weakened in these two cases, as some interviewees point out: ‘the situation of the Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 111

Catalans and Basques is different; that’s clear. Athletic de Bilbao and FC Barcelona continue with that story, but don’t be mistaken, it’s not like before. It is true that it’s stronger than in other places, but not like it was before.’ An example of the progressive weakening of the territorial symbolism of the clubs can be found in Athletic de Bilbao. In spite of recognizing the political idiosyncrasies of this club, some fans recall the debate that occurred a few years ago about whether footballers born outside the Basque Country could form part of the team line-up. Keep in mind that according to the sporting ideology of this club, their line-up could only contain footballers who had been trained in its farm team or in one of the other clubs in the Basque Country (including those belonging to diverse adjacent territorial areas, as well as players who were born in the Basque Country or one of these bordering areas). However, due to the club’s poor sporting results between 2005 and 2007 – when for the first time in its history it was at risk of descending to second division Spanish football – many fans demanded a revision of the club’s Basque-only policy. Thus, as one interviewee recalled: ‘look at what happened in Athletic de Bilbao a few years ago, when it was about to go down to the second division, they seriously thought about starting to hire people from outside instead of only those from there. So there things have also changed, because in the end football moves a lot of money, and a lot of people have their hands in it.’ Certainly, loyalty to a football club continues to be an essential component of Spanish fans’ football culture. To a large extent, this continues to be true because of the influence of familial-socialization and generational-transmission processes, in addition to the regional symbolism that permeates the majority of the clubs. However, qualitative studies with fans have pointed out that the influence of both processes could have been weakening over recent years, due to the new commercial context in which the sport is developing and the emergence of other dynamics for articulating the relationships between fans and clubs. These new dynamics are related to the media attraction of the big stars, the global profile of the successful clubs, the influence of peer groups or the socializing effect of social networks.

Consumption, hyper-consumption and personalization

We have just seen that feelings of identification with the clubs continue to hold a central position in the football culture of Spanish fans. Some of the factors that fostered these feelings have weakened slightly, but other dynamics and aspects have appeared that renew the clubs’ 112 Spanish Football and Social Change attraction. However, the changes have been much more pronounced in the case of the repertoire of practices and behaviours performed by the fans. The analysis of the interviews with fans shows that, in recent years, the majority of football-related experiences have been transformed into experiences of consumption: football has absorbed and developed the commercial logic to the point of constituting a space of hyper-consumption. Gilles Lipovetsky pointed out that hyper-consumption is the most recent phase in the evolution of western societies, and it signifies a new stage in the lifestyle commodification process in which consumption practices have begun to express ‘a new relationship with things, with others and with oneself’ (Lipovetsky, 2007, p. 20). The French author states that the spirit of consumption has entered into family relationships, politics, culture and, of course, sport. There is a growing hegemony of the commercial sphere, which yields new products and services with a shorter and shorter life cycle – in spite of what ecological protests or new more sombre consumption modalities might make us believe. According to Lipovetsky, for the moment there is nothing that indicates a slowing of the process of commodifying experiences and lifestyles (Lipovetsky, 2007, p. 16). This has fostered the appearance of a new hyper-consumerr, characterized both by the increase in and intensification of the volume of their purchases – thus the prefix hyper – and by the fact that they no longer respond to traditional dynamics of distinction, but rather to the search for emotional, sensorial, festive and communicative satisfactions (Lipovetsky, 2007, pp. 36–7). This new hyper-consumer can be considered the structural matrix from which the traits of a new football culture emerge. According to the testimonies gathered, today’s fan no longer just goes to the stadium or watches his or her team’s matches on television. Many other practices and behaviours have arisen, both individual and collective, whose presence has intensified among football fans in the past few years: ‘the relationship with the team is not limited to going to the stadium once every 15 days; the media have created many other things, and we are hooked on all of them.’ In the same way, another fan stated: ‘the football match is a small part of the whole show; football is a thousand more things.’ Thus, a considerable football presence has been developed in the mass media, especially on television and the internet. Fans now have before them an abundant offer of games to watch on television, or through any other receiver, such as smartphone or tablet, as well as a large number of programs and news reports related to football. The fans are completely aware of this new omnipresent football offer: ‘but it’s not Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 113 just watching matches anymore; the number of programs you can see is impressive, almost any time of day and anywhere. Football is quite present on the radio or on television. Then there is the internet and many other things.’ Another aspect is the personalization process of football consumption. In fact, it can be said that football is becoming a more and more indi- vidualized form of consumption. It is precisely this dimension in which commodification appears, as this new a la carte consumption is not free, especially when the product is a live game. This idea was reflected by one of the interviewees: ‘in the past, if you didn’t go to the stadium, you just saw the football match they televised every Saturday or Sunday, and at the end of the year you might have seen four or five of your team’s games. Now you can see all the league games, although you have to pay.’ Finally, football today is a space of hyper-consumption because its consumption has the character of a festive experience. In the case of both attendance at the stadium and television broadcasts, it is an activity whose fun components have been reinforced and its socio-political connotations weakened. Watching a football match is, above all, an act of pleasurable gratification: ‘football is a place of enjoyment, passion, to come alive for a while, or have an intense experience, because sometimes there is suffering, but above all it’s a fun experience.’ Therefore, the relations between the fans and the clubs increasingly develop in a space that could be defined as hyper-consumption. It is characterized by the increase and intensification of the consumption of football information and broadcasts, as well as by the growing personalization of this consumption and the experience of matches as festive activities leading to a flow of festive–aesthetic sensations and providing a state of satisfaction and pleasurable euphoria.

Dissonant experiences, apathetic reactions

After looking at the aspects that characterize the feelings of loyalty and consumption behaviours of Spanish fans, it remains to find out the fans’ opinions or points of view about the commercial transformation of this sport, as well as their reactions or responses to the commodification process. This section will address this objective. The majority of the interviewees argue that the transformations in football make up one more aspect of the evolution of Spanish society over the past 20 years. The transformation of football into a commercial, televised and global phenomenon was, therefore, inevitable, allowing it to survive and maintain its hegemony as a social and sporting 114 Spanish Football and Social Change phenomenon. Thus, football’s evolution in recent decades is a clear sign of its supremacy in Spanish society: ‘I think football’s great success is having remained in its privileged place and having overcome that challenge; it has consolidated its hegemony in a time when there is a broad offer of leisure activities. This shows the strength of football.’ However, along with this type of view, the new Spanish football scenario presents other characteristics that endanger its capacity to stimulate fans. The first would be the strong influence of the economic supremacy of clubs like Real Madrid or FC Barcelona on sporting results. The larger budgets of these two clubs lead to a sporting superiority that can eventually alter the competitive balance that is necessary for producing emotion and interest in the sport spectacle: ‘the only thing I see, and a lot of people agree, is that if someone gets more money from television and rights and, therefore, can spend more, which is unfair, in the end there is no league, because two teams are ahead and the others can’t keep up with them, and that can kill football.’ The existence of large economic and, therefore, sporting differences between the clubs eventually produces a reduction in the uncertainty about the final outcome of leagues and tournaments and an increase in the predictability of results (Hoch, 1973). This situation weakens support for the more modest clubs and weakens the competitive balance that is the basis for the general interest in the competition. This has certainly occurred over recent seasons in the Spanish league, in which Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have considerable sporting and economic advantages over the rest of the clubs. However, this is not the only dissonance produced by the commodification of Spanish football. The majority of the interviewees had a negative view of the football clubs’ management style. The general feeling is that they are poorly managed, committed to an irresponsible dynamic of waste, and removed from any mechanism of control and supervision: ‘it’s a disaster; I think one day it will blow up and take a lot of things with it, and I don’t think anyone dares to clean it up. They do what they want, and in the end the enormous holes they leave behind have to be covered up.’ In this way, what could be defined as a football ambivalence is established: football’s growth as a spectacle produces great enthusiasm among the fans, but this enthusiasm co-exists with the feeling that the teams’ management is embarked on an unsustainable course from which it is quite difficult to escape. Again, the fans seem resigned to this ambivalence, an attitude that some sociologists consider a defining characteristic of western societies (Bauman, 1991). It generates contradictory thoughts that produce cognitive instability in fans, which affects their interest and can unleash negative or hostile Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 115 reactions designed to reduce this instability (Festinger, 1957), such as distancing themselves from the clubs’ management. The testimonies show the growing breach this ambivalence has created between the fans and the clubs’ management. This distance has been increasing since the transformation of the clubs into SADs. The fans have seen that managing the clubs has become an increasingly specialized and complex task. Moreover, it now has nothing to do with them, as the shareholders and managers – and not the fans – determine and direct the club’s management: ‘the club’s management does not depend on us, in the sense that it is in the hands of the shareholders, and it is something we can’t control; so, even if the managers are very bad, in the end you realize that for those topics they do not count on us, and, therefore, we can’t do anything.’ The fans end up realizing that their role in the new football scenario denies them any responsibility for the progress of the club and turns them into mere consumers of sport performances. This finding coincides with Anthony King’s conclusions about British fans, when he pointed out their progressive transformation into consumers (King, 2002), and it confirms the arguments by Giulianotti (1999) and Williams (1999), when they highlight that football – and sport, in general – cannot currently be understood without a prior analysis of its relationships with consumption and the different sport dimensions. Furthermore, the fans’ acceptance of their condition as consumers would be proof of the way football is becoming one of the cultural products par excellence of post-modern societies (Sandvoss, 2003). It is not surprising, therefore, that fans are more interested in the fun and festive aspects of football, avoiding anything that can detract from their enjoyment and cause them more worries: ‘I think what also occurs is that people think they already have too many problems in their lives to become involved in the problems of an institution, no matter how much they love it, in which they cannot participate.’ It should be added, however, that this distancing from the clubs’ management is not necessarily evaluated negatively. Some interviewees feel more comfortable in the role of spectators, as this role allows them to separate themselves from the club’s problems and take pleasure in the game and their team’s play: ‘football is to distract me from my problems, not to get more, so I go to football to have fun, like I go to the cinema to watch a good movie’; ‘I go on Sundays to see my team, and I don’t want to know anything about debts; I go there to have fun, and I don’t want to hear about other things.’ All of this has produced another characteristic trait of today’s football fans: indifference or apathyy toward aspects related to a club’s management. 116 Spanish Football and Social Change

The interviewees point out that the consolidation of their role as spectators has produced a separation from decisions about the organizational and economic functioning of the club, which they ultimately do not feel are their responsibility: ‘we are less and less active; in reality, we have been distancing ourselves, and now we watch the matches and that’s it; we don’t live the club like before because we only care about winning matches. The club’s economy can be fixed by the shareholders, which is their thing.’ However, it would be a mistake to state that the fans’ apathy toward the club’s management means they do not influence its functioning and evolution. The pressure that can be exerted at the stadiums – especially when the sporting performance of the club is not positive – can play a decisive role in determining whether the club’s president or coach continues in the post. In the recent history of Spanish football, there have been many situations in which fans have protested about the club’s progress and exerted pressure in the stadiums until achieving the president’s resig- nation. However, this protest is only activated when there is an accumu- lation of negative sport results. It is not usually done in response to the club’s functioning or management. As long as the team has good results, the fans do not usually express any discontent: ‘people protest when the team isn’t doing well and doesn’t win games; they don’t care about anything else; the only things that can make them stand up and ask the president to go is when the team loses matches, plays badly or is close to being demoted to second division – things the fans do not tolerate.’ It should also be mentioned that this attitude of protest has become less frequent in recent years as the feeling of ownership of the club has also diminished. In fact, some interviewees have pointed out that protest actions when the team is ‘going through a bad streak’ or playing below the expected level are less and less frequent. Currently, the fans’ most common reaction when their team has poor results or does not play well is to stop attending matches at the stadium. In summary, the context of commodification in which today’s Spanish football is developing has given rise to what has been defined here as current football ambivalence. According to this concept, the strong attraction and fascination of football’s growth as a spectacle co-exists with the bitter sensation produced by threats to the competitive balancee of the main competitions or the economic unsustainabilityy of the majority of the clubs. For fans, the tension between these extremes is resolved by distancing themselves from the club’s management and adopting a spectator role. They are transformed into mere hyper-consumers of football spectacles, which produces the apathy or indifference with which they sometimes view the economic situation of the club. Their protests are restricted to Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence 117 situations where the sporting performance of the club is inferior to what would be expected or might lead to descent to a lower division.

Conclusions

This chapter has shown that feelings of identification with football clubs continue to be a central aspect of the Spanish football culture. Mechanisms of familial socialization and generational transmission of loyalty to a club contribute to this, as along with the regional symbolism that still permeates the majority of the football clubs. The influence of these two mechanisms, however, might be weakening due to the impact of commodification processes, as well as the emergence of new relational dynamics between fans and clubs brought about by the media power of great football stars, the successful global profile of the main clubs, and the socializing effect of social networks or peer groups. These new dynamics imply a detraditionalization process, as they show a progressive depletion of the socializing influence of the family or the local community in the football culture (Giddens, 1996). Moreover, there is a substantial change in the direction of these processes, which are displaced from a descendent vertical type logic (generational transmission in the heart of the family) to a horizontal one (relations between groups of peers, mass media and social networks) and deterritorialization (weakening of regional symbolism). These changes, however, do not seem to reduce the potential for adherence to clubs. This may be due to the mass media’s constant renewal of the attraction of the combative confrontation of sporting competition, or the displacement of personal and collective identification processes in favour of leisure spaces, after the crisis in family, political or work identities had increased the feelings of insecurity and being uprooted (Lipovetsky, 2007, p. 136). The transformations in Spanish football culture, however, are much more visible in the case of the fans’ consumption practices and behaviours. They seem to be characterized by an increase in and intensification of the consumption of information and football broadcasts, as well as by a growing individualization. It is, then, a hyper-consumption experience involving the seeking of emotional experiences that involve viewing football matches as fun-festive events. The distancing from the club’s management and the focus on aspects strictly related to sport allow the fan to experience the game as a source of pleasure. All of this clearly reflects the commodification of the football ethos that has occurred in recent years, as the majority of the experiences that establish the relationships between fans and clubs have become consumption experiences (Walsh and Giulianotti, 2001, p. 59). 118 Spanish Football and Social Change

The study has also demonstrated the existence of a syndrome of ambivalence in today’s football, as fans’ fascination with this sport co- exists with the feeling that the clubs are poorly managed and economically unsustainable. The tension between these extremes is resolved by fans adopting the role of spectator and distancing themselves from the clubs’ management and anything not strictly related to sport. What arises from this is the condition of the resigned fan. This process involves a profound alteration in fans’ football cultures, transforming them into mere consumers of football spectacles, voluntarily removed from the extra-sport dimension of their club. They go to the stadium looking for a pleasant experience, and they only react in a critical way when their team plays badly. Thus, while they have feelings of apathy or indifference when they contemplate the economic progress of the club, they restrict their protests to those periods in which the sporting performance of the club is far below what would be expected or could result in its descent to a lower division. Certainly, the transformations experienced by Spanish football in recent years have altered the football ethos of its fans. Identification with clubs remains firm in a scenario of progressive detraditionalization and deterritorialization that restricts the socializing influence of the family and the local community, but strengthens the power of big celebrities and reinforces the influence of the mass media and social networks. The penetration of commercial logic increases the entertainment attraction and spectacular nature of football, fosters its fun-festive dimension, and increases the level of its consumption at a range of levels. At the same time, the transformation of the clubs’ legal status and their new business configuration leave no role for fans other than as hyper-consumers. The fans accept this new role without much complaint, and they so not resist their condition as hyper-spectators. They are aware that once they have been relieved of any responsibility for the club’s progress, they can consecrate their identification with it by completely enjoying the game as a festive experience and euphoric fun. All of this, on the other hand, does not avoid the appearance and intensification of ambivalences that are characteristic of late modernity (Bauman, 1991). In the case of football, they are manifested by dissonance between the attraction of football’s growth as a spectacle and the danger of its progressive loss of competitive balance or the economic unsustainabilityy of the majority of the clubs. 7 Inductor Masculinities

One of the dimensions in which the sociological study of football can contribute to knowledge about Spanish society and its transformations has to do with gender identities. In Spain, for a long time football was considered a uniquely masculine space in which women could only be present as mere companions. But during the past 30 years, Spanish society has undergone an intense process of social change. Regarding the evolution of the relationships between the sexes in Spanish society, it has been pointed out that there is currently greater heterogeneity, both in the conception of the female gender (who has been emancipated from her submission to the patriarch to become more versatile), and of the masculine gender, which is now more plural and autonomous. It is more plural because it has become open to a new diversity of masculinities that are heterogeneous, divergent and contradictory among themselves; and it is more autonomous because these masculinities are increasingly defined by internal relationships of power, friendship or rivalry, instead of being defined, as in the past, by heterosexual relationships of dominance over women (Gil-Calvo, 2006, p. 49). This process was also influenced by the fragmentation of the social structure, produced by the post-industrial emergence of the risk society and the rupture of the lineal continuity of traditionally masculine biographies. In the past, these biographies were based on stable employment and indissoluble marriages, whereas today they have been shattered both by unemployment and job instability, as well as by divorce and family disorganization (Gil-Calvo, 2006, p. 51). This explosion has de-structured masculinity, opening it up to new variants. The question is, has this pluralization of masculine identity also taken place in football? Has football changed its role in the construction of masculinity in Spanish men? Has there been a change in the gender

119 120 Spanish Football and Social Change ethos of football as a result of the evolution of gender relationships in Spanish society and the so-called masculinity crisis? Moreover, what has happened in the case of women who are becoming more interested in football? Are they becoming integrated into groups of male fans? How do they feel among these men? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this chapter, which is a synthesis of several papers previously published (Llopis-Goig, 2007a, 2008c, 2011b). These papers were based on information obtained from interviews with fans, groups of fans, coaches, physical education teachers (in primary and secondary schools) and footballers. Hours of field observation carried out in stadiums, football fields and primary and secondary schools were also quite useful. Additionally, with the aim of analysing women’s opinions and perceptions about their situation among men as football fans, insights obtained through interviews with Spanish women who are interested in football and involved in football supporter communities (known in Spain as peñas) have also been included. This chapter is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the historical and theoretical framework for the current study. The next two parts present and discuss the results of the study. The fourth part draws some conclusions.

Previous considerations

Historically, Spanish football culture has had a strong male component, and women’s interest and involvement was minimal. Some Spanish clubs have attracted women as spectators, usually as companions of male fans, since the early 1900s. In the case of Real Madrid, for example, in 1912 its President offered extra tickets to male fans so that their wives, girlfriends or sisters could get free entry into the stadium. Football reports in the press started to mention these female fans. Their presence increased, but in 1920 they accounted for only five per cent of all the spectators at Spanish football stadiums. These women came from the upper classes, as in other Spanish sports at the time, because attendance at sport events was a privilege granted only to women at the higher levels of the social pyramid (Bahamonde, 2000, p. 68). From the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, women strengthened their position as spectators at stadiums, but always as men’s companions. While there was still no working-class female support, it was nevertheless significant that the presence of women as fans became a sustainable trend. Real Madrid issued its first socia (membership) to a woman in 1926, and in 1933 the club’s census showed Inductor Masculinities 121 approximately five thousand socios, of whom almost 20 per cent were women. Significantly, women paid less for being socia than men, a stra- tegy that lasted at the Madrid club until the 1950s. FC Barcelona already had 194 female socias in 1939, which accounted for five per cent of the total membership, while in the same year the first incorporation of female supporters took place in clubs such as UD Salamanca, Racing de Santander and Real Zaragoza (Orúe and Gutiérrez, 2001, p. 20). How- ever, even as late as the mid-1970s, some Spanish clubs, such as Granada and Athletic de Bilbao, relegated their female socias to the category of children, where they were considered powerless and voiceless and were not allowed to vote in club elections and assemblies (Verdú, 1980). Since the 1980s, sociology has demonstrated the role of sport in the social construction of gender identity. From different perspectives, the close relationship of sport with the maintenance of a society dichoto- mized around gender has been demonstrated. In the first place, the configuration of sport as a space for reproducing a hegemonic masculine model has been pointed out (Sage, 1990; Messner and Sabo, 1990; Messner, 1992). Second, sport has been shown to play an initiation role in the configuration of a masculine identity that rejects values considered ‘feminine’ (Badinter, 1993). Third, the influence of sport in the emergence and increase in masculine violence has been suggested (Miedzian, 1995). Bonde (1996) considered that sport came to play an important role in the construction of masculinity from the time of the Industrial Revolution, when the family atmosphere and the education of sons and daughters became the responsibility of women. In this historical period, the division of functions in the home was accentuated compared to prior historical eras. The bourgeois ideal of the housewife arose, and from then on the socialization of the male was going to be based on values that did not have mothers as the reference, such as individualism, independence, a fighting spirit, bravery and discipline. This view led men to create social spaces in which they could discover and construct their masculinity (Bonde, 1996, p. 87). Sport was one of these settings. Its practice allowed men to build their bodies and acquire some motor skills and a character that reflected the competitiveness of modern society (Mosquera and Puig, 2009, p. 107). In this context, some sports appeared, like boxing or rugby, that contained strong elements of violence and exalted masculinity. Sport thus became a ‘laboratory of masculinity’ (Bonde, 1996). In Spain, from the beginning sports were set up as a space for masculine initiation and the reproduction of masculinity. This fact has 122 Spanish Football and Social Change been pointed out in various essays and studies that continue to show the differences currently existing between the two sexes, in spite of advances made by women in the past 25 years (Puig, 1986; García- Ferrando, 1990; García-Bonafé, 1992; Puig, 2001; Mosquera and Puig, 2009). Some data from a 2010 survey on Spanish sport practices make it possible to confirm the persistence of these differences. According to this survey, carried out among members of the Spanish population over the age of 15, there continues to be a notable difference in the interest in sport between men and women: for men, 74.2 per cent, for women, 51.1 per cent (García-Ferrando and Llopis-Goig, 2011, p. 39). Five years earlier, the proportions were quite similar: 73 per cent among men and 50 per cent among women (García-Ferrando and Llopis-Goig, 2009, pp. 46–8). Regarding the practice of sports, 49 per cent of men did some sporting activity, compared to 31 per cent of women (García-Ferrando and Llopis-Goig, 2011, p. 48), percentages that are quite similar to five years earlier, when they were 45 and 30 per cent, respectively. The differences are even greater when comparing the number of licences issued by sport federations. According to the numbers contained in the 2012 report of the Superior Sport Council, of the 3,498,848 licences existing in Spain, men held 79.4 per cent, compared to women’s 20.6 per cent (CSD, 2012). These data reveal that the percentage of men over the age of 15 who participate in national, provincial or local sport or league competitions stands at 18 per cent, compared to a meagre five per cent of women (García-Ferrando and Llopis-Goig, 2011, p. 81). Therefore, there are still large differences between men’s and women’s relationships with sport, which is undoubtedly due to the influence of diverse factors, such as the values and norms acquired during the socialization process, representations of the body, and the amount of available time (Mosquera and Puig, 2009, pp. 102–3). Surprisingly, in spite of the importance of football in Spanish society, the differences between men and women in relation to this sport have scarcely been studied. The available data make it possible to state that it is the sport modality most practised by Spanish men; some 27.9 per cent of the population that practises a sport. This percentage is higher if we add the 14.6 per cent of this population who play indoor football. However, when the sports most practised by women are examined, football is way behind, with only 2.6 per cent on a large pitch and 1.8 per cent for indoor football (García-Ferrando and Llopis-Goig, 2011). Large differences are also found in media consumption: while football is followed as a spectator sport by 68 per cent of men over 15 years of age, only 37 per cent of women pursue this behaviour (Instituto de la Mujer, 2006, p. 48). Inductor Masculinities 123

Although little attention has been paid to the differences between boys and girls in the practice of football in Spain, some studies make it possible to obtain a quantitative approximation to its incidence in childhood and adolescence. For the age group between six and 12 years old, a study carried out in Almeria reveals that 25 per cent of boys play football at least three times a week, compared to 20 per cent of girls (Casimiro, 2002). These percentages, however, decline drastically from this age on, so that only two per cent of post-12-year-old girls play football with this frequency (Casimiro, 2002, p. 100). A study carried out in the city of Gijón among boys and girls in the last two years of secondary school (14 to 16 years old) confirms this tendency: football is played by 47 per cent of the boys, compared to eight per cent of the girls (Rodríguez, 2000, p. 185). The 2010 Survey of Sport Habits yields quite similar numbers for the age range between 15 and 18 years old. According to this source, football is practised by 47 per cent of boys at these ages, while the percentage for girls stands at seven per cent. Furthermore, this same source finds that in the next age range, from 19 to 25 years old, football practice declines to 28.7 per cent among boys and to 2.8 per cent among girls. However, gender issues inside football have hardly been studied. There have been some studies on the female practice of this sport, such as one study that compared the experiences of professional female footballers in various European countries (Scraton et al., 1999) and a journalistic study that showed the growing interest of Spanish women in this sport (Orúe and Gutiérrez, 2001). However, as far as we know, only four studies have empirically investigated the role of football in the social construction of masculinity: Linaza and Maldonado (1987), Díez Mintegui (1996), del Campo (2003) and Del Campo and Jordi (2013). Linaza and Maldonado (1987) studied the role of games and sports in children’s psychological development, focusing on the evolution of football in children from six–seven years old to 14–15 years old. They discovered certain elements that explained boys’ choice of football as their main game: the social pressure on them, the characterization of football as an adult sport that these children constantly receive in the mass media, the ease with which football adapts to any terrain and situation, the complexity it presents as a system of rules that maintains a sufficient intel- lectual and motor challenge and, finally, the attraction of practising it in a group (Linaza and Maldonado, 1987, p. 179). Díez-Mintegui (1996) studied the way the practice of children’s and youth football is organized in the province of Guipúzcoa. This researcher showed that this sports activity was arranged according to a clear dichotomy between boys and 124 Spanish Football and Social Change girls, where football acted as a frame of reference and legitimization for the maintenance of a social space in which the boys received a socialization linked to values related to success and public visibility. On the other hand, the anthropologist Alberto del Campo pointed out that football constituted one of the most significant and dense frameworks for the re-creation, construction and revitalization of traditional androcentric masculinity, understood as macho, homophobic and misogynist (del Campo, 2003, p. 67). This author concluded that football ‘re-creates a dominant masculinity, in contraposition to archetypes of behaviour considered the opposite of masculine, such as women, homosexuals and children’. As the main actors, footballers are socialized in these guidelines from the moment they enter the lower levels of a club. Later, when they reach adulthood ‘they are required to demonstrate all the elements that characterize this prototypical masculinity, including aggressiveness, homophobia and misogyny’ (del Campo, 2003, p. 96), with football matches being the space where this masculinity is re-created with greater intensity. More recently, in a study on the construction of masculinity in minors, del Campo and Jordi (2013) pointed out that this process is much more ambivalent, and the adults involved in it are aware of the need to develop practices that counteract the elements that characterize professional football, such as prioritizing fun and the collective experience of victory, the consideration of other elements beyond goal-scoring when creating team line-ups, or combining children in mixed-sex teams. Our study is based on these pioneer studies but aims to go farther. In the first place, it is not restricted to the sport practice of children and adolescents. Together with these groups, we also include adults. Second, its focus is the study of the social reconstruction of hegemonic masculinity, and not the role the game plays in the psychological development of gender identity, as occurred in the first of the studies cited. Furthermore, in the same way that multicultural post-feminism has shown that feminine identity is not an ‘essential dimension’, but rather a wide range of possibilities (Haraway, 1995; Butler, 2001), the research on masculinity cannot be dominated by an essentialist view where what is masculine is defined simply as a lack of what is feminine. Such essentialism ignores the opposing relationships established between various masculinities, even though it is fundamental in understanding the processes of the social construction of masculinity. In our research, we start from Connell’s concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and his four-category model that organizes and orders the space of the masculinities (Connell, 1997). According to Connell, there is a type of masculinity, the hegemonic, which dominates the other three Inductor Masculinities 125

(complicity, subordination and marginalization). Hegemonic masculinity is related to heterosexuality, authority, strength and physical endurance. However, although it is strictly applicable to only a few men, many men benefit from the dominant position of this type of masculinity in the social structure. Connell called this benefit a ‘patriarchal dividend’, and considered that those who take advantage of it are included in ‘complicit masculinity’. Connell describes the existence of two more types of masculinity: subordinate masculinity and marginalization masculinity (Connell, 1997, pp. 40–3). Subordinate masculinity deviates from the dominant heterosexual norm, so that its legitimacy becomes suspect, but it is tolerated with certain indifference (the effeminate and homosexuality, for example). Marginalization masculinity includes both deviant masculinities (pederasts/paedophiles, procurers ...) as well as those masculinities that are remote from the dominant norm and/or stem from socially excluded ethnic groups. Our objective is to investigate to what extent football in Spain can continue to be seen as a manifestation of hegemonic masculinity. Furthermore, we want to find out what processes reinforce the survival of this type of masculinity. For this purpose, the concept of complicit masculinity proposed by Connell is not very appropriate. Although Connell suggests that ‘the men who experience the football matches on their tel- evisions’ could be included under the category of complicit masculinity (Connell, 1997, p. 41), our research reveals that this behaviour cannot be extrapolated to the broad spectrum of manifestations of masculinity developed in the world of football, whether dealing with relationships between coaches and players in training sessions or during games, relationships between children and young people who play football at lower levels and their parents, or the relationships between fans and their teams in football stadiums. In all of these relationships, the majority of coaches, fans and parents of young players exalt and reinforce the acquisition of norms of hegemonic masculinity, exhibiting behaviours and making comments that have little resemblance to those they make at home in front of the television. What we have in these cases is not complicity, but rather exaltation. For this reason, we will call them inductor masculinities, as their behaviours are intended to make footballers learn or represent a hegemonic masculinity (Llopis-Goig, 2008c).

Learning hegemonic masculinity

In the fieldwork, we were able to verify that football is one of the most important reference points in the construction of the masculine identity 126 Spanish Football and Social Change of Spanish boys. Our research focused on three settings: schools, public spaces and football fields of lower-league professional football clubs. In schools, the practice of football continues to be a central element in the social construction of masculinity: from very young ages the boys wear the team shirts of their idols from the first division of Spanish football; they exchange stickers with their photographs on them; and they take advantage of any free time to play a game of football on any improvised playing field. For the boys, playing football functions as a space for the building of social relations, distraction and personal affirmation, which in turn provide a sense of identity and belonging to a group. However, football does not have the absolute exclusivity it once had in the social construction of masculinity. Three decades ago those boys who were not interested in football, or those who were not very good at the sport, were seen as weird. However, today this does not occur, and a lack of interest in football does not automatically place a boy in a secondary or marginal position. This change was confirmed by a physical education teacher: ‘football is no longer the only thing that marks the status of boys within the group. Before, it was normal that those who played football the best were the boys with the greatest social standing. Now this is not the case. There are other things that structure their relationships.’ Furthermore, the practice of football is not exclusive to boys. It is more and more common for girls to mix with boys when playing football in schools. This was confirmed by various physical education teachers in primary and secondary schools: ‘before, you never saw that, but now it is quite normal. You find girls playing football with boys. Before, 25 years ago, this was impossible, and now it happens. It is true that there are always more boys than girls, but the barrier has dropped, and now you see girls playing football with the boys.’ However, as a physical education teacher pointed out, these girls abandon this practice at around 11–12 years of age. The second space we examined is that of parks and public spaces. In small and medium-sized cities, as well as in the parks and streets of certain neighbourhoods of large cities, it is common to find boys playing football on improvised playing fields. This practice has lessened in the past few decades, due to the process of urbanizing and modernizing Spanish society, but it is still fairly common. In these open spaces, the practice of football re-creates the attitudes and behaviours of adult sports to a greater degree than when it is played in schools under the guidance of educators. Observations of the interactions and inter- changes established among boys in parks and public spaces reveal that they adopt a large number of behaviours and attitudes derived from Inductor Masculinities 127 professional football: the way they fight for the ball, the intensity and aggressiveness of their play, the instructions and shouting to each other, and the way they celebrate their team’s goals or victories. The participation of girls in these spaces is even less frequent than in the schools. However, it was in the youth squads of professional football teams that we observed a true contrast with the practice of football in schools and public parks. In junior or lower-league football teams, children and adolescents exhibit much more aggressive and competitive behaviours, and professional footballers are the reference group that they admire. This phenomenon is clearly visible in the football matches of the cadet and junior categories (15–16 and 17–18 years of age, respectively), and interviews with young people of these ages strongly confirm it. A 17-year-old who plays in a first-string junior team in Valencia expressed it in this way: ‘this is a man’s sport; those of us who dedicate ourselves to it want to reach the highest level, and the one who is worth the most, makes it. Anyone who is afraid should do something else.’ Two actors have a special influence on these youths: coaches and parents. The former play a crucial role in the construction of the masculinity of the young footballers. Interviews and field observation allowed us to verify that more than one coach transmitted the idea that any recourse is valid to prevent a goal from being scored, to dodge an opponent, or to score a goal: pushing, physical collisions or verbal aggression. The majority of coaches encourage their players to behave in an aggressive way on the playing field. According to them, this aggressiveness makes them men and strengthens them as footballers: ‘sometimes they are good, and they have potential, but they need to be more manly; the boys are more and more “refined”. They play less in the street, are less aggressive, and we the coaches, one part of our job is to prepare them as men, make them men, so they go on to the playing field with two balls, to sweat for the team.’ But the coaches are not alone in their efforts to shape the boys according to the norms of hegemonic masculinity. The majority of the players’ fathers transmit a message to their sons that is quite similar to that of the coaches, oriented toward reinforcing competitive and aggressive behaviours and attitudes. In our field observations, we could see how the parents who accompanied their sons encouraged them to demonstrate their manliness on the playing field and face the opposing team with aggressiveness and hostility: ‘Come on, man! Move! Run faster, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you asleep or are you afraid? Get him! They’ve already made two goals and you still have more than half the game left’. 128 Spanish Football and Social Change

In short, football plays a relevant role in the construction of the masculinity of boys. When the sport is practised in the school setting, the supervision of the physical education teachers keeps it from becoming a mechanism for constructing hegemonic masculinity. However, as we move away from the formal education setting to the sports practice in junior professional football teams, we begin to detect the emphasis on numerous stereotypes related to hegemonic masculinity, such as virility, physical aggressiveness, emotional control and competitiveness. In the junior teams of the professional clubs, there is a constant reinforcement of this masculinity by parents and coaches, and the boys are pushed toward physically aggressive, competitive and bellicose models of behaviour. Furthermore, not demonstrating virile behaviour arouses misogynist suspicions: the worst thing you can say to a footballer is that ‘he acts like a girl’. Certainly, playing football in school does not play a strong role in reproducing hegemonic masculinity due to the supervisory role of physical education teachers and the growing presence of some girls in the practice of this sport in schools. This situation changes radically when boys begin to play as juniors in professional football teams. In these cases, the expectations of fathers and coaches are activated and communicated, and they begin to orient the boys toward the development of hegemonic masculinity. The role of coaches and parents, therefore, is not one of accomplices, but rather one of inductors: they exalt hegemonic masculinity, and they make young people see that this is an indispensable tool for success in football. Taking advantage of their superior position at the heart of the family and the club (as fathers and as coaches, respectively), they encourage the young men to interiorize attitudes and behaviours typical of hegemonic masculinity.

Representing hegemonic masculinity

The behaviours that induce hegemonic masculinity are even more apparent in football stadiums. In the section above we saw how fathers and coaches of young footballers induced the acquisition of hegemonic masculinity by exploiting their superior positions in the family and the organization. In this section, we will see that in the football stadiums, the fans, as followers or consumers of football, induce the players to represent hegemonic masculinity. In the stadium, the fans watch the ‘home’ matches of the teams they follow. Our observation work showed that in the stadiums there are numerous episodes of exaltation of hegemonic masculinity where Inductor Masculinities 129 the players are pressured and induced to use it. Paraphrasing Messner (1992), it could be said that the stadiums constitute homosocial spaces created to counteract the fear of a feminisation of men in industrial society. Messner maintains that the development and consolidation of sports with a strong violent component, like football, could be interpreted as a reaction to the change in gender relations demanded by feminist movements. Stadiums have been converted into a social space for the celebration and exaltation of this challenged hegemonic masculinity. The fans demand that the players exhibit a high level of physical effort, with no fear of contact with players from the rival team, and give themselves passionately to the game. The players must feel a strong team spirit and sweat for the team. In exchange, they receive economic rewards way out of line with ‘normal’ wages. One fan justified it this way: ‘yes, it is a rough game, but other sports are too; football is a sport of men and for men; it has always been that way. And that is why they earn what they earn. To have balls. They are paid for that; they have to run and fight.’ It is true that fans demand strength and effort from the players, as well as a bellicose character that is required by the high competitive level of the game. Therefore, those players who embody this warlike prototype are converted into icons of masculinity. Any footballer whose performance does not meet the requirements of physical effort, devotion and virility will be booed by the fans, who will also protest when they think a player has not run enough to control the ball or has avoided crashing into a rival player for fear of being injured. The only players who are exempt from these demands are the goal scor- ers (‘strikers’), players who compensate for a possible lack of effort or devotion with high skill and creativity – and goals. However, in the football stadiums, it is not only the players who represent hegemonic masculinity. It is also represented by the way the fans express themselves in the stands when they demand more manliness from the players. And these demands for masculinity are witnessed by the smallest fans. In Spain, very young boys often accompany their fathers to the stadium, and the boys have the opportunity to view an entire repertoire of paternal behaviours unseen in other areas of family life. There they see their fathers get mad, disagree with the referee, insult the players from the other team or demand more toughness from the players on their own team. This ‘school of masculinity’ culminates in many cases with a veiled invitation to an initiation. The fathers often positively reinforce their sons’ initiation into these types of behaviours, which make them feel satisfied and proud. 130 Spanish Football and Social Change

Avoiding hegemonic masculinity

Hegemonic masculinity, however, is not only a matter of learning and representation; it is also something that is avoided. This section is based on previous research carried out with women interested in football and involved in Spanish peñas (Llopis-Goig, 2007a). Women sometimes feel uncomfortable among men who do not always accept them as football supporters. Therefore, even in their role as spectators, women sometimes remain excluded from being ‘real’ football supporters. They are often seen to have the only legitimate female role, that is, ‘spectate, support and admire’ (Scraton, 1995, p. 122). Moreover, they would like to be involved in male football by joining peñas, which would allow them to meet and watch their teams’ away matches among fellow supporters or meet at other times to talk about their teams. However, women feel they are denied this participation, as they feel uncomfortable in traditional peñas due to the strong male ethos and masculine undertones associated with them. Peñas are groups of friends and supporters who meet to watch their football team’s matches and discuss their team’s fortunes when matches are not being played. Some peñas have an office in the club facilities, but most are located in a bar that subsequently becomes their headquarters. Peñas meet regularly, sometimes two or three times a week, and they are a well-established and important feature of Spanish football culture and Spanish football fandom. Justifying the reasons for forming these peñas, women assert that their role as football spectators is not one of being a simple ‘companion’ to men. Instead, they go to football matches because they like them, and one member stated that ‘we enjoy football as much as men do’. Another member commented that ‘football has always been monopolised by men. Women who attended football matches were just their husbands’ companions. They would take them to the stadium so they would not be alone at home. Now we have shown that women go to a football stadium because we like football, we know about it, we enjoy it, and we have things to say about it.’ They express their interest in football as a sport and declare themselves to be ‘real’ fans of their teams, which is difficult for Spanish men to understand. It is a common occurrence for men to reject women’s views about football matches. One female member remarked: ‘we meet and we talk about football. If there are men with us, you know, at once, that they are going to say that you don’t know anything about football, that you don’t understand it.’ Inductor Masculinities 131

The reluctance of some men to accept women’s opinions and comments about football undoubtedly encourages women to find a space of their own to enjoy football. The idea emerged in the interviews that some men are willing to allow women to be present at football matches, whether on the ground or in a bar, but as soon as women dare to give an opinion about the match under way, a player’s performance or the team’s tactics, they are derided by their male counterparts. This point was confirmed by one woman:

they [men] cannot bear it when we give our opinion about any aspect during the football match. I suppose that not all men are this way, but here [in Seville], it is something they cannot help. They approve of us going to the stadiums and watching football matches, but only if our presence does not question their superior status. They have read about it all during the week in the sports magazines. And they know it all, so you make a comment and they look at you in a way that makes it clear that you better remain silent.

These findings support the results obtained by Woodhouse and Williams (1999) in their study of the situation in England. Their findings suggest that female followers of male mass sport events often find their patterns of support and ‘authenticity’ as ‘real’ fans questioned by other, mainly male, supporters. Since the development of a football fan’s identity is primarily driven by social interaction, female fans of mass sport events such as football may find obstacles when trying to rise to the highest levels of the fan club structures (Crawford, 2004, p. 47). This perception of a limited ‘career’ as a football fan seems to be behind the decision of many of the women interviewed to create or belong to a female peña. Clearly, expressing views but not having them treated seriously by men is a frustration faced by women with an interest in football, and one of the key motivating factors for the emergence of female peñas. Nonetheless, not all the women interviewed got involved in peñas for the same reasons. Some joined because their husbands, boyfriends or friends do not like football the way they do, and the peña provides an outlet for their interest. Others joined because they disliked the idea of being surrounded by so many men in the stadium, while some women felt it was unsafe to venture out alone to the stadium. Finally, there are groups of women who do not feel at ease with their husbands regarding football because either they are not allowed to express themselves freely or they feel inhibited by their husband’s presence in the stadium. 132 Spanish Football and Social Change

The philosophy of the peña was clearly reflected in an interviewee’s comment:

being women alone, we can talk about whatever, and we can do what we want. If they are with us, everything we do seems wrong. If we shout at the referee, they look at us out of the corner of their eyes trying to make us feel ashamed. If we give our opinion, they tell us to shut up as we know nothing about football. Therefore, with women from the peña it’s fantastic; we have our own environment to enjoy the match.

This view stresses the importance of the sense of ‘community’ within female peñas, as members are not faced with the overriding sense of masculinity that dominates male peñas and subsequently influences the women’s behaviour or their commitment to their club. Individuals may form football loyalties for many different reasons, and it is increasingly common for fans to connect with each other on the basis of more ‘individual’ reasons. Further, supporters’ communities are not just defined by a common sense of belonging, but also by patterns of exclusion and even by opposition to others (Crawford, 2004, p. 53). In this sense, the creation of separate peñas for women could be considered an attempt to fight against the exclusion they suffer in the stadium, as well as an attempt to oppose the strong male ethos that characterizes the world of football in Spain, and particularly in male peñas. While male membership in female peñas is not completely prohibited, most do not allow men to join, as one member explained by saying that ‘our peña is only for women. We have often talked about it, and we are convinced that it is going to remain the way it is now’. Traditional peñas do not formally forbid access to women, but there is an insurmountable cultural barrier that women dare not cross by joining. It is absolutely unimaginable, both for men and women, for a woman to come into a bar where the traditional peña meets and sit down to chat, as one member confirmed: ‘a woman cannot go into a bar alone in which there is a men’s peña. She can turn up with her husband, but not alone. She cannot show up alone and have a cup of coffee. This is why the women’s peñas have appeared.’ On the other hand, it should be made clear that their rejection of male membership does not make the female peñas feminist. Most women interviewed rejected the word ‘feminist’ as a term to describe the purpose of the peñas they belong to. The following comment shows the general opinion of the women who were interviewed on this matter:

we are not a feminist peña. We founded a peña because of football, and we still think this peña has to be for women. We did not create Inductor Masculinities 133

the peña due to a feminist impulse. It is the same as a group of men founding a peña just for men; they do it because they like football and are supporters of a football team. We just do the same.

Therefore, the women interviewed insist on the fact that their peñas are just like men’s – that is, they are based on a deep passion for football, for their club and for generating a pleasant environment in which to enjoy football among like-minded people. A key issue for women who join peñas is that their commitment has to be fitted around their domestic ‘duties’. Female peñas simply cannot perform the same activities or follow the same schedules as the men’s peñas, as women fans must accommodate their fandom to domestic constraints that simply do not apply to men. It seems that even though peñas exist for women and point toward some form of equality, women are still restrained by traditional/domestic duties that affect their membership and experience in their peñas. One member pointed out these aspects during the interview:

our peña cannot organize things in the same way as a men’s peña. They finish work and they have finished with their duties; they go to the bar and stay there as long as they want. They do not have to look after children, do the washing or make dinner. They arrive home and have dinner. So, a women’s peña cannot have the same role or be run in the same way.

Back et al. (2001), in their work on football supporters’ associations, pointed out that an ‘entry ticket’ to a supporters’ community always involves much more than a financial transaction. Boundaries of inclusion and exclusion within a given community are mediated by cultural issues and, in this sense, possession of the right ‘cultural ticket’ may be achieved by those who can easily adapt to the norms of the existing community. However, for those who have less ‘flexible’ differences, such as gender (and also, for instance, ethnicity), access and progress within the group may prove difficult to achieve (Crawford, 2004, p. 55). This is the key consideration regarding access to membership in peñas in Spain.

Conclusions

In Spain, football has traditionally been a space where men felt like men and could create and re-create their masculinity. The purpose of this chapter was to examine to what extent it can be said that the great 134 Spanish Football and Social Change economic, social and cultural transformations that Spanish society has experienced in the past three decades have had an equivalent effect in the world of football. More specifically, the purpose was to analyse whether the greater pluralism and heterogeneity that characterize the construction of the masculinities in contemporary Spanish social life are also present in the world of football. For this purpose, we based our study on information obtained from qualitative research. Interviews with fans, coaches, physical education teachers and professional and youth footballers were conducted, along with numerous hours of field observations. The study showed, on the one hand, that Spanish football continues to be a macho social space, far from the tendencies toward ‘redefining masculinity’ identified in other sport modalities (Mosquera and Puig, 2009). On the other hand, we have verified that the hegemonic masculinity is reproduced through learning and representation processes. The processes for learning hegemonic masculinity take place in the junior levels of football clubs. There, a large number of coaches and fathers of players orient the young people toward virile, aggressive and competitive behaviours. Both act, then, as facilitating agents of hegemonic masculinity. For this reason, we propose that they be considered inductors of masculinity. The research has shown that this induction of virile and competitive behaviours does not occur in the football practice that takes place in primary and secondary schools, where the action of the physical education teachers, as well as the low but growing number of girls participating, provides the game with a different dynamic. The processes of representation of hegemonic masculinity take place in the football stadiums and their ‘appendages’, the places where the peñas of fans meet. In the stadiums, the fans demand from their players a constant demonstration of masculinity, virile behaviour and complete physical dedication. The footballers will have to embody this hegemonic masculinity in order to avoid being booed by the fans in the stands. The fans act, therefore, as inductors of these hegemonic masculinities. Hegemonic masculinity is reproduced in the world of football through processes of learning and representation. Both processes are induced. The first is induced by fathers and coaches, and the second by fans and spectators. It is obvious that not all fathers, coaches, fans and spectators behave in this way, but the study shows that many do. In any case, the analysis has allowed us to understand why in Spanish football there has not been an evolution of the dynamics of the construction of masculinity equivalent to what has occurred in other settings in Inductor Masculinities 135

Spanish social life. The analysis, furthermore, has served to add one more type of masculinity to the theoretical model of Connell (1997): inductor masculinities, those that actively facilitate the reproduction of hegemonic masculinity. This is not, therefore, a type of masculinity that limits itself to living off of its ‘patriarchal dividend’, as Connell says that complicit masculinities do. The masculinities that we saw in action in the stadiums and football fields act as inductors of the social development and reproduction of hegemonic masculinity: they facilitate learning it, and they demand its representation (Llopis-Goig, 2008c). On the other hand, in Spain those women who are ‘interested’ in football and follow their teams passionately are pressed to create strictly female peñas in order to engage with the professional male game. They find a space of liberation from the masculine domination of football and the possibility of developing a kind of ‘gender individualization’ (Ortega, 1996; Puig, 2000) in these peñas. Belonging to a peña allows women to assert their interest in football and create their own cultural spaces around football, spaces that cannot be found in the traditional peñas because they are defined by the kind of strong masculine ethos that has become a barrier to the entry of women. Women’s peñas are ‘sociability spaces’ with a playful component which, in some cases, has emerged to ‘gather’ women together who otherwise would have to go to the stadium alone. Furthermore, for some women, joining a female peña means that their husbands will agree to their attendance at football matches without suspicion. Other women join peñas because they do not want to attend matches with their husbands, as they do not enjoy their partners’ behaviour or feel restricted by their presence. These women experience their membership in the peña as something of a ‘liberation’, allowing them to enjoy their favourite sport on their own terms. Women’s peñas allow female fans to oppose the male stereotypes that define female fans in Spain as being incapable of understanding football (Llopis-Goig, 2007a). 8 Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals

Football hooliganism in its modern sense is often said to have started in Great Britain in 1961, after a serious riot broke out during a match between Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland; although crowd disorder was not unknown in other countries, this event is regarded as the birth date of the so-called ‘English disease’, which grew in seriousness and extent over the next few decades. The increasing professionalization and internationalization of English football during the 1950s generated a need for greater profits in football clubs that brought about a reorganization of stadiums (Taylor, 1971). Due to this reorganization, young working-class people were relocated at the ends of the stadiums, where separation of fans contributed to conditions conducive to the growth of a hooligan subculture, especially during the 1970s. For some commentators, the emergence of this subculture signified an attempt by fans to preserve their traditional ethos and reassert their class identity in a context of financial crisis and the end of the decolonization process of the British Empire (Williams, 1997). Moreover, in addition to club- related disorder, there was an element of defensive patriotism in the hooliganism of English youth when the national team travelled abroad: they did not accept the new international position of the country, being defeated on the pitch by countries they considered inferior, and surpassed economically by both emerging countries and enemies beaten in the war (Williams, 1997). The English disease soon spread to other European countries. Italy was the first country to develop a violent subculture. Among the Italian tifosi, some radical groups began to become organized. The ultras, a name used for the first time in 1971 to talk about the most fanatical and passionate fans of calcio, stood out from the rest of the fans due to their colourful and vigorous way of expressing their passion for football. In Italy, being an

136 Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 137 ultra was a synonym for being a ‘militant football fan’ who passionately supported his club. According to Antonio Roversi, the ultra was a ‘holder of the local football culture, of its traditions, popular heroes and its anecdotes, myths and memories’ (Roversi, 1992, p. 43). Moreover, in the case of Italy it is important to take into account the link between ultra gangs and politics, which is related to their origins as inter-class groups. These inter-classist roots were closely related to the fact that in Italy the ultra phenomenon was nurtured by small groups of friends who shared elements of co-existence apart from football, such as their ideological commitment to political groups of both the extreme left and the extreme right, which created a point of union among them. In spite of the influence of the English hooligans in the appearance and development of the Italian ultras, there are important differences between the subcultures developed by each of them over time (Adán, 2004). The English groups arose as an outgrowth of the traditional behaviour of the ‘rough’ working class: the hooligan subculture was forged around a group of male contemporaries united by a common geographical origin and, above all, a taste for physical challenge and expression of support for their team during matches. Violence was, therefore, what held the group together, as well as the most visible symbol of their perception of their subordinate condition, which they expressed in violent and apolitical rebelliousness. These groups showed their typical subcultural nature in the absence of developed forms of coordination, organization and promotion of the activities they carried out as a group. In the stands, the English model was characterized by activities that exalted group feeling, such as chanting or wearing scarves, which, however, did not imply the maintenance of a commitment beyond the duration of a match (Adán, 2004). In contrast, the Italian ultra groups historically had an inter-classist make-up, as mentioned above, and their members found a connection between them in the type of orientation they developed toward the group, which could be defined as ‘militant’. This orientation was marked by both the type of masculinity associated with the world of football and by the political tensions that accompanied the appearance of these groups, often characterized by a strong propensity towards street confrontation. The ultras groups used acts of aggression as an instrument, and their organizational structures were closely linked to performing match-day activities, such as choreographing behaviour in stadiums, displaying signs or exhibiting flags, or external activities, such as signing up members, producing and selling their own material, publishing fan magazines, or forging relationships with their club (Adán, 2004, p. 88). 138 Spanish Football and Social Change

The mass media and young people in countries where English and Italian teams had played matches were fascinated by the acts of vandalism of their followers. Thus, a juvenile subculture began to develop in which a series of elements flowed together that stemmed from this Anglo-Italian influence. The following traits became common among young ultras who attended the majority of the football stadiums on the European continent (Adán, 2004, p. 89). In the first place, there was an unconditional adhesion to a friend–enemy outlook, induced by the nature of the game itself (dal Lago, 1990; Bromberger, 1995), according to which the great mass of fans attending a football match became a ‘community’ that experienced strong feelings of mutual fraternity. Based on contributions by Roversi (1992), Adán points out a second trait: ‘the aggressive and exasperated sense of territory, which the ultra extends beyond the bleachers and the stadium to the transportation means used to get there, its surroundings, and even the whole city.’ The third trait is a search for social status and visibility that ultras pursue through the various activities and behaviours they perform. The fourth trait has to do with the tendency to accumulate and integrate elements of various youth subcultures related to music, fashion or politics, which explains the visibility and differentiated nature of their presence in the stands. The fifth trait refers to the adoption of a type of hegemonic masculinity, which some have called the ‘violent masculine style’ (Marchi, 1994), characterized by aggressiveness, exaltation of physical strength and sexism. Finally, there is a rejection of any type of control by both the clubs and the police. Spain, along with other European countries, could not avoid the attraction the youngest football fans felt toward these groups of hooligans. The 1982 FIFA World Cup, hosted in Spain, was the moment when this influence was first felt, and the peñas were the places where the birth of violent groups began to incubate. This does not mean that Spanish football before the 1982 World Cup was free of violent altercations. As shown in a research study that analysed the data from the sports press between 1975 and 1985 (Castro-Moral, 1986; quoted by García-Ferrando, 1990), of the 6000 violent football episodes registered during that period, 90 per cent occurred at matches. Three quarters of these incidents were labelled as ‘aggressions between footballers’ and ‘throwing objects onto the playing field’, the latter with the intention of harming the referee or one of the players. The practice of throwing cushions, solid containers, coins, lighters or other objects was quite common, in spite of regulations that prohibited the sale of solid containers in stadiums. According to Castro-Moral (1986), ‘aggressions among Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 139 spectators’ did not rise above three per cent before 1982, although they began to increase significantly with the appearance of the first violent groups after the 1982 World Cup. This chapter presents a sociological analysis of the emergence process and evolution of violent groups in Spanish football, further developing previous work on this topic (Llopis-Goig, 2007b, 2007c). The first section explains how and when (World Cup 1982) the influence of the British hooligans and Italian ultras arrived in the stands of Spanish stadiums. The next section explains the way the first gangs of radical fans were created. The following section shows the evolution of Spanish radical groups in the second half of the 1980s, when there was a boom of skinheadd groups that led to an increase in violence in stadiums. One of the main obstacles in the fight against violence in football stadiums was a complex network of interrelationships where football clubs found themselves enmeshed with violent groups, an aspect to which an entire section is devoted. The next sections deal with the creation of a National Commission against Violence in Sports Events in 1992, and the emergence of new groups of young people agitating against violence. The final section includes a chapter summary and conclusions.

The Spanish peñas and the FIFA World Cup 1982

Despite the influence that the British and Italian cases had in the emergence of radical groups in Spain, it would be inaccurate to say that Spanish groups were the result of some kind of mimicry of what happened in Great Britain or Italy. Most of these groups were created after the dissolution of fan associations that already existed in Spanish football: peñas (CSD, 1989). Football clubs fostered the establishment of peñas at a time when attendance at football matches was low. Clubs would reward supporters who belonged to peñas, making it easier for them to get tickets to matches or travel with their team. In the 1970s, peñas were fan associations officially recognized by clubs and generally made up of middle-aged or elderly people, with a traditional male and non-participative nature. They provided a space for social interaction and football consumption. In the second half of the 1970s, during the period of transition to democracy, football clubs launched some advertising campaigns to encourage membership in peñas as a way to make sure that fans came to their stadiums. At the time, the younger sector of the Spanish population in particular was becoming interested in the political change process, and clubs feared that attendance to stadiums would go down due to a lack of renewal of 140 Spanish Football and Social Change fandom. As a result, peñas attracted younger members and, therefore, increased in number and size. Groups of young people became members of these club-recognized associations. In some cases, young people would join because their fathers belonged, or had taken his son to the stadium from a very early age. In other cases, young people were drawn to peñas because they could get cheaper tickets, due to the preferential treatment by the clubs’ managing boards toward the peñas. The 1982 World Cup, held in Spain, played an important role in the emergence and development of radical and violent groups in the country. Both the English and Italian national teams were present at this World Cup. During the matches played by both national teams and particularly during those played by the Italian national team, which finally and surprisingly won the Cup, Spanish football fans were able to witness the violent acts of some individuals in the stadiums where the matches were being played (Williams et al., 1989). The English and Italian examples were not the only ones that became known of during the 1982 World Cup. Other British national teams, Scotland and Northern Ireland, also played in that World Cup. However, the Scottish football fans, known as the Tartan Army, had started to adopt a different attitude around 1980, when they decided to differentiate themselves from the English model by shying away from behaviours, such as hooliganism, that could identify them as British citizens (Giulianotti, 1991). After the 1982 World Cup, small groups of young people started to organize themselves within peñas. They intended to create systems and structures similar to those they had seen during matches played by the Italian national team. Some of these youngsters had established a direct contact with the Italian supporters, and some had simply witnessed their actions when watching a match on TV (Adán, 2004). It is clear that the seductive power of the actions of Italian ultras increased after Italy won the World Cup.

The emergence of the first violent groups

Supporter clubs inspired by the passion of the Italian ultras at the 1982 World Cup, gladly welcomed Spanish youth as members; they were still called peñas. However, some different characteristics were becoming noticeable. In the first place, their members would locate themselves at the ends of stadiums and cheered their team in an intense and colourful way. Chants, crowd choreography and travel with their team started to become very important to members of a peña. Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 141

The passion and influence of the younger sector of peñas soon overrode the views of older members, who saw the peña as a space for socialization. The peña for them was a place to meet with friends with whom they shared a love for the same football team. Therefore, the new young members soon began to feel uneasy inside these peñas, where they met their relatives who, in many cases, had passed on to them their love for football. Moreover, they considered the older members of the peñas to be passive and not focused on cheering and passion. This generation gap eventually produced division inside the peñas and gave younger members reasons to separate from the official peñas. This rupture allowed them to liberate themselves from adult control, free to go to the stadium on their own. As Javier Durán pointed out, it was not a collective and deliberate decision. It was actually brought about by a few individuals with leadership ambitions, who focused already existing tendencies (Durán, 1996a, p. 55). In this gestation process, another factor stood out that decisively marked its later development: the links of friendship that united the majority of its founders, who knew each other from sharing experiences in diverse everyday settings in the neighbourhood and school, or from sitting near each other in the stands when they went to see their team play. At the same time, along with the need to maintain a distance from older football fans, there was also a need to catch people’s attention. Therefore, the younger generations started to join those groups in order to mark their difference and legitimize their rebellion, and they soon regarded themselves as the true supporters of the team. They did not hesitate to discredit traditional peñas, as they considered them incapable of cheering the team with the requisite passion (Durán, 1995, p. 190). There was a clash of mindsets, which ended up with these groups of young people leaving and, in some cases, being expelled from peñas. After a few years, the rejection and expulsion of these groups of young fans from traditional peñas became widespread, and the first, embryonic, radical groups started to become organized. Thus, most of them detached themselves from official peñas: Ultras Sur split away from Peña Las Banderas; Ultra Naciente from Peña Naciente, Supporters Gol Sur from Peña El Chupe, or Frente Atlético from Peña Fondo Surr (Viñas, 2005). Frente Atlético originated and developed at the end of the 1970s, and it was influenced by English and Italian models. Frente Atlético cultivated a paramilitary aesthetic inspired by extreme right-wing political ideologies, and it became one of the most problematic groups in Spanish football; it was a clear example of a radical group connected to extreme political ideas outside the football arena. The same could be said about groups 142 Spanish Football and Social Change such as Boixos Nois and Brigadas Blanquiazules, created by supporters of FC Barcelona and RCD Espanyol, respectively. The former, founded in 1981, was influenced by the ideas of Catalan pro-independence nationalism, and it soon became an important rallying point for Catalan nationalism. A few years later, the embryo of what would later be the Brigadas Blanquiazules started to develop. This group had a Spanish nationalist and authoritarian ideology, a political position radically opposed to the pro-Catalan Boixos Nois.

The arrival of the skinheads

After the 1982 World Cup, the number of organized radical groups operating in Spanish stadiums began to multiply. At that point they also started to spread among second and third division teams. The extension of the phenomenon was accompanied by an increase in the presentation of ‘mosaics’, choreographed displays organized in the stands to encourage the team; these were normally coordinated by a small number of members who had strict control over the group. In the second half of the 1980s, violent incidents also increased considerably, with the 1986–7 season being one of the most violent in the history of Spanish football. The increase in violence was a direct consequence of the consolidation of some groups. It allowed them to reach a certain level of internal cohesion and create a hierarchy of power. However, this increase in violence was also related to the arrival of the skinheads in the world of football. The arrival of the skinheads in Spanish radical groups had a direct effect on the explosion of violence that hit stadiums during the second half of the 1980s. Carles Viñas, a Spanish historian who has studied skinhead groups in depth, points out that they added their rebellious sartorial style and radical political ideology to youth-dominated supporter groups, and this became particularly seductive to the more extreme Spanish supporters (Viñas, 2005). Skinheads were quickly adopted into the more consolidated radical groups such as Boixos Nois, Brigadas Blanquiazules or Ultras Sur (Real Madrid). They later became the dominant figures in these groups, thus forming their hard core. At the end of the 1980s, the radicalization process inside these groups reached its highest level. Acts of vandalism increased, causing a sense of lack of governability among police forces and public institutions. The absence of knowledge about how to deal with these groups, along with a lack of will to stop the phenomenon, which was still not perceived as a problem, worsened the spiral of violence. The problem became evident with the first victim of violence. On 13 January 1991, a supporter Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 143 of RCD Espanyol died when attacked by five members of Boixos Nois. This incident produced an increase in the rivalry and violence between Boixos Nois and Brigadas Blanquiazules, which contributed to creating a state of increasing alarm and social concern among citizens (Viñas, 2006), especially among regular spectators at sport events. When the skinheads joined the ultras groups, there was an activation of a tendency that had been latent since their beginnings: ideological extremism, which increased its influence and eventually became the most important element of these groups. This ideological extremism influenced an aesthetic homogenization within these groups. This homogenization was very important, as it created a symbolic and iconographic style for these groups. However, despite the visibility of the aesthetic dimension, it is important to point out that there was also an ideological dimension that was inspired by one of the most controversial aspects of Spanish politics: the conflict between the centre and the periphery, that is, the conflict between a unified and centralist view of the state, broadly affiliated with the extreme right, and the pro-independence orientations of peripheral nationalisms. Violent incidents and attacks became common from the second half of the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s. The increase in violence and attacks associated with the influence of skinheads aroused the concern of public institutions. They started to become aware of a genuine threat to public order. Clubs started to take actions to counter the behaviour of skinheads. Some fortified security in their stadiums, while others tried other means to deactivate groups that had turned the stands into a battlefield. Most clubs started to hire private security guards to protect supporters inside the stadiums from attack, to supplement police personnel already working in stadiums (Viñas, 2005, p. 84). However, following these violent groups became easier, as with the arrival of the very visible, distinctively attired skinhead element it was possible for the authorities to spot them and prevent them from entering stadiums. In the first few years of the 1990s, as security controls at the entrances to stadiums became common, skinheads began to change their appearance. They gave up their uniforms and adopted casual wear and informal sportswear, allowing them to go unnoticed by the police. All in all, police action meant a reduction in physical violence, which in time gave way to another kind of violence, indirect psychological violence through gestures and words. Public opinion also greatly helped in this direction, as the public was deeply concerned after an incident that took place in 1992, namely the death of a boy at the old RCD Espanyol stadium. The cause of his death was a flare that exploded on his chest. 144 Spanish Football and Social Change

Although on this occasion, the boy’s death had nothing to do with football violence, public opinion was so stirred that public authorities felt the need to take stronger action to halt violence at football grounds.

Co-existing with violent groups

The radicalization and violence of the skinheads reached its height in the second half of the 1980s. At that time, the clubs became aware of the need to deal with the problem. They found that they themselves had played a part in the development and amplification of this phenomenon. They realized that they were immersed, together with these violent groups, in a complex network of interdependent relationships (Durán, 1996b). The administrators of many clubs protected these groups, tolerat- ing violent behaviours that they viewed as a force that reinforced the club’s interests by frightening referees and rival teams during matches. Some club officials maintained fluid relations with these groups and gave them special treatment, although they often did so clandestinely (Viñas, 2005, p. 170). In 1987, Javier Gómez Navarro, while Secretary of State of Sport, pointed out that ‘some club presidents have dealt with the topic in a frivolous way. They have flirted with these violent groups for a long time, as they were the ones who cheered the team. They have been playing […] and then they realized that the creature they created is almost impossible to control’ (Marca, 14 November 1987, p. 4). Thus, the consolidation of the violent groups would not have been possible without the collaboration of the clubs, which, as pointed out by Javier Durán, ‘soon became aware of the usefulness these young people could have’ (Durán, 1996b, p. 38). Certainly these groups supported the team, pressured opponents, heated up the environment in the stands, and were helpful in club election processes. In exchange, they were awarded an institutional recognition that ranged from paid trips, financial dona- tions, buying lottery or raffle numbers, official passes for their members, opening up access to club facilities, freedom of movement within sport installations, or premises to keep signs or other types of material in the stadium (Viñas, 2005, pp. 171–9). At the beginning of the 1990s, the then General Sport Director of the Spanish Government, Rafael Cortés Elvira, criticized this situation and the hypocritical behaviour of many football clubs that contributed to reinforcing these violent groups: ‘everyone says they are against violence and, under the table, they finance it. Many clubs are extremely tolerant about what is going on’ (ABC, 17 March 1992, p. 9). Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 145

The radical groups were, then, used by the clubs as a type of ‘infantry for animating and heating up the atmosphere in the stands’. Behaviour often degenerated into inflammatory and violent acts encouraged by club officials, who, through their declarations or comments, implicitly or explicitly supported them. All of this led two inspectors from the National Police Force, Damián Sedano and José María Seara, to state that connections between the football clubs and the groups were clear (Sedano and Seara, 2001, p. 61); for example, supposed connections between the Executive Commission of FC Barcelona, presided over by Joan Gaspart and José Luis Núñez, and the Boixos Nois motivated the Anti-violence Commission in 1999 to recommend that the Catalan club exert greater control over this group (Viñas, 2005, p. 180). Sedano and Seara stated that the Boixos Nois had been collecting signatures in favour of the pre-candidate Joan Gaspart, who they considered, from their point of view, the best candidate to lead FC Barcelona. Equally important were comments and declarations frequently made by coaches and footballers, in which a certain sympathy for these groups could be detected; however, this did not reach the more extreme situation in Italian football, where some players came to directly identify with the violent sections of ultras groups. Footballers such as Pedja Mijatovic and Luis Enrique, for example, even wore t-shirts of the Ultras Surr and Boixos Nois, respectively. Other players also demonstrated a closeness with these groups at times. As they were professional footballers, their gestures, comments or behaviour had considerable public influence and contributed to worsening situations of tension and conflict between groups of fans from rival teams.

The amplifying role of the mass media

Almost all of the social scientists studying the phenomenon of violence in football have pointed to the enormous influence of the mass media on its origins and propagation (Durán, 1996a, p. 107). One of the main researchers on the topic pointed out that, although the acts of vandalism between people or against property inside and outside football stadiums had increased, this increase did not correspond to the extreme importance the mass media gave to the problem, which characterized it as a major social and political concern (Taylor, 1971, p. 352). García-Ferrando highlighted, before the tragedy in Heysel stadium in the match between Liverpool and Juventus in 1985, that news about any violent act that occurred at a sporting event was immediately spread and often magnified and amplified in such a way that it ended 146 Spanish Football and Social Change up reaching the entire society (García-Ferrando, 1985). This occurred during the second half of the 1980s in Spain, when there was an amplification process not only by sensationalist mass media, but also those considered as the ‘serious’ press, which also showed clear signs of ‘exaggeration’ in their description of the events (Durán, 1996a, p. 108). Thus, a state of social alarm was produced, with a decisive role played by certain mass media that promulgated the spread of a state of panic stemming from a supposed reign of terror in Spanish football (Durán, 1991; Adán, 1998). Although the process of ‘autonomization of violence’ had occurred in the past (Castro-Moral, 1996), from 1985 violent incidents were no longer a tangential aspect of football and became news themselves. In an analysis of the coverage by the El País newspaper of the World Cups of 1982, 1986 and 1990, Durán showed that there had been an increase, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in the space dedicated to violent acts in the stands, regardless of their true importance. Moreover, Durán also showed that, even when there was a clear decline in their seriousness, both the quantity and intensity of scrutiny given to these incidents continued to increase significantly (Durán, 1991, p. 45). Virtually all of the documents on violence in football highlighted the decisive influence of the mass media in its genesis: for example, article 3.5 of the agreement elaborated by the European Council, valid in Spain since 1 September 1987; the ‘Definitive Decision Elaborated in the name of the Commission of Youth, Culture, Education and Sport on Vandalism and Violence in Sports’, passed on 5 November 1987; or the study and report by a Spanish Senate Commission of the situation of violence in sport, which, although accepting the difficulty of empirically establishing this relationship, did not hesitate to assert that it existed: ‘it is difficult to measure the influence of the mass media in the development of violence in sports, but it is evident that the treatment of sport information can limit or amplify the causes and effects of this violence’ (Senado, 1990, p. 215). Although they were not the only cause of these violent incidents, the sensationalist and spectacular accounts in the mass media contributed to their development. This sensationalistic treatment hid a business rationale and responded to lucrative commercial motiva- tions: the competition between different mass media encouraged the coverage of violent incidents in a fierce battle for audiences (Dunning et al., 1988; Williams et al., 1989). However, the processes of influence did not just operate from the media to society, where they ended up creating a feeling of social alarm. The media’s treatment of football violence fed the desire for notoriety and Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 147 social recognition among members of the violent groups (Senado, 1990, p. 203). Gaining coverage of their behaviour and becoming the centre of attention were seen as a great achievement by these groups, providing them with a sense of power and social prominence (Cancio, 1990, p. 16).

The Anti-violence Commission

As pointed out above, in the first half of the 1990s there was a decline in violent incidents due to police action and the pressure of a society that was becoming more aware of the seriousness of the problem. Moreover, there were two decisive factors in the decrease in violence in Spanish football in the 1990s. One was the creation of a National Commission against Violence in Sports Events. The second was the appearance of groups of football fans who took a position against violence and carried out actions supporting the club. This section will examine the first of these two factors, leaving for the next section the task of describing the characteristics and type of actions developed by the new anti-violence groups. The first legal step taken in Spain to combat the problem of violence in football stadiums was the acceptance of the ‘European Convention on Spectator Violence and Misbehaviour at Sports Events and in particular at Football Matches’, passed by the European Council on 19 August 1985. This convention proposed the adoption of measures to prevent and eliminate violence and invasions by spectators on football fields and other sport venues. Two years after its approval, the Spanish government ratified it, at the same time that the Senate created a special commission designed to analyse and investigate the causes of violent behaviour in Spanish football stadiums. Among the many activities carried out by this commission, it performed visits to sport installations to observe the existing weaknesses in terms of security. After two years of work, the Senate unanimously approved, in its plenary session on 14 March 1990, a document titled: ‘Report of the Special Commission for Investigating Violence in Sport Events, with special reference to Football’ (Senado, 1990). This report included a series of recommendations aimed at eradicating violent behaviour. These recommendations related to the organization of championships, regulation of ticket sales, police and judicial measures, and measures related to the management of sport arenas. One recommendation of the Senate Report that had important repercussions was the creation of a National Commission against Violence in Sport Events as the organ to coordinate initiatives against violence in football stadiums. 148 Spanish Football and Social Change

The Senate Report had a decisive influence on the articles of the Sport Law (Law 10/1990 of 15 October), referred to in previous chapters. This Sport Law was the first legal text written in Spain that contained legislation dealing with matters of prevention of disorder and safety in sport, and it meant the beginning of a stage of greater clarity and determination in the government’s fight against violent incidents in football stadiums (Durán, 1996a). Among the instruments set out by the Sport Law for combating and preventing violence, Title IX includes the bases and functioning regime of the National Commission against Violence in Sport Events – commonly called the Anti-violence Commission; this consists of representatives of the state administration, the autonomous communities, local corporations, sport federations, professional sport leagues, sport associations and individuals qualified in the area of security and sport. The Law also established sanctions for not fulfilling its recommendations in regard to safety. These were mainly economic, but they did not exclude criminal or civil sanctions for infractions, and it left open the possibility that in more serious cases other types of dissua- sive measures could be imposed, such as the disqualification of a sport organization for two years, the closure of stadiums, or the prohibition of spectators who had been involved in violent altercations. The National Commission against Violence in Sport Events was established by Royal Decree 75/1992 of 31 January 1992. This text broadened the targets of sanctions, and it increased the functions of the Commission, including compiling and publishing data on violence, taking preventative measures, recommending preventative measures to clubs, sport federations and professional leagues, and encouraging them to introduce disciplinary measures against violent acts, promoting information campaigns about the preventative measures agreed upon, running citizen awareness campaigns, establishing criteria for identifying high-risk matches, recommending the creation of units of control and coordination in matters of security, regulating the sale of tickets, providing information about the exercise of sanctioning powers, and efficiently coordinating investigations to obtain more exhaustive knowledge about violence in stadiums. A later modification, Royal Decree 769/1993, of 21 May 1993, proposed the creation of an overarching position to fight against violence in the stadiums – the security coordinator. Moreover, it established the adoption in stadiums of computerized ticket dispensing systems to facilitate greater control over their sales, and set out the responsibilities of organizers of sport events, the functions of the State Security Forces and Corps, the competencies of the security coordinators, who had to be nominated by Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 149 the Interior Ministry and the Civil Governors and, finally, the tasks of the Unidad de Control Organizado (UCO, Organized Control Unit), defined as an operations centre dedicated to coordinating the State Security Forces. This Royal Decree encouraged the clubs to adopt security measures within a maximum period of five years, although once that period had ended, there was a new modification that established a period of five more years to adapt the football stadiums to the regulation established in Royal Decree 769/1993 regarding the installation in older stands of numbered seats. This set of actions made the State Security Forces, in the 1990s, the main tool in the fight to eradicate violence in football stadiums. However, to this should be added the appearance of new groups of fans who made the opposition to violence their main trademark. The next section describes the significance and contributions of these groups to the Spanish football scenario.

New fans, latest developments

The second key factor in the decrease in violence in Spanish football in the 1990s was the emergence of new groups of football fans. They called themselves pacifists; while they were unconditional supporters of their teams they were also strongly opposed to any form of football violence. They adopted a festive approach to supporting their teams, and were oriented toward a passionate style of enjoyment of football matches that was closer to the colourful Italian style. Apart from encouraging their teams, their manifest opposition to any kind of violence soon gave them a good reputation as well a high level of support among Spanish people. Clubs welcomed these new groups, seeing in them a way to increase the social acceptability of football, as they also included charitable actions in their activities. They soon gained moral and economic support from club administrators and became an integral element of club life and can be seen as a ‘middle way’ between the peñas’’ traditional ethos and the spirit of the younger members who wanted to cheer on their teams, but not get involved in violence. They cultivated a friendly outlook, and were free from violent practices; this allowed them to become official peñas within the structure of clubs, which provided them with certain benefits and compensations because they had the blessing of administrators, who even initiated policies for approaching and collaborating with them (Viñas, 2005, p. 91). These alternative groups promoted ideas of loyalty and faithfulness to their team’s colours, but with a peaceful orientation which rejected 150 Spanish Football and Social Change violence. Also important were the charity or solidarity activities organized by these groups, which offered a much more respectable version of youth football subcultures to Spanish society. Among the initiatives carried out by these groups included, as Carles Viñas has highlighted, for example, collecting money to help children from Bosnia-Herzegovina through the sale of photo-collages; the Peña Juvenil del Espanyol collecting food for needy people in Barcelona and auctioning objects donated by public figures to raise funds for children with physical and mental handicaps; fundraising by the Peña Almogàvers (FC Barcelona) to help the victims of natural disasters in Central America or the distribution of condoms and red ribbons by Riazor Blues at RCD La Coruña’s stadium on the World Day against AIDS in January 1995 (Viñas, 2005, p. 92). In light of these activities, everything seemed to indicate that the new groups of non-violent fans were going to produce a new football culture in Spanish football stadiums that would mark the end of conflict and violent altercations. However, the rise of these groups with an evident pacifist ethos generated an unexpected and unwanted reaction. Some veteran radical groups were feeling the loss of their central role as a result of the rise of these new groups. They were no longer the centre of attention in the mass media, and they were losing the unity that had allowed them to have a great influence on young football fans. The loss of hegemony and centrality of the pioneer groups accompanied the media and social ascent of the new groups of young fans. The former were no longer the glue for the young fans in a context in which the latter had begun to offer a peaceful alternative that was more in tune with the ideas of fair play that were now gaining ascendancy. In this context, the veteran radical groups felt distant from the new pacifist groups and reacted by directing their violence toward these groups. They constantly challenged them and tried to insult and humiliate, or even hurt, them. This reaction of the radical groups caused a massive rupture among all groups. From that moment on, the organized groups of fans became divided, demonstrating the plurality and heterogeneity of the youth subcultures of football. This fracturing produced, on the one hand, a relative radicalization of the positions and behaviours of some of the members of the veteran groups; the progressive loss of the prestige of violent actions meant the marginalization of the most belligerent members, who then opted to leave and form other smaller, more aggressive groups. Today there is still a large variety of groups of football fans in Spain, and many of them still identify with extreme political ideologies. However, since the end of the 1990s, a gradual reduction in violent acts and a progressive adoption of more moderate political affinities Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals 151 has been evident. These newer groups are mainly made up of young people between 15 and 35 years old (Rodríguez, 2003; Viñas, 2005), which was also pointed out by various studies carried out several decades ago (CSD, 1989; Linares et al., 1992). The majority of these young people regularly attend the stadium to watch their team’s matches, something they do not do, for economic or work reasons, when their team plays in other cities. These young people are often students, they live with their parents and they have never committed any crimes of any type (Acosta and Rodríguez, 1989, p. 109). From the 1980s, the predominance of middle-class youths in these groups has been highlighted, a fact that contrasted with the less well-off social profile that characterizes young radical groups in other countries. Some studies, however, have linked these groups to working-class neighbourhoods and low economic levels (Acosta and Rodríguez, 1989, p. 101; Durán, 1995, p. 198). There is no contradiction in these statements, as some researchers have pointed to the inter-classist nature that characterizes these groups in Spain (Viñas, 2005, p. 190). In any case, there are important variations depending on geographical location and the club followed. In the same way, there is also a clear relationship between less advantaged socio-economic levels and higher degrees of violence, as has been documented by various Spanish researchers (Antón and Riquelme, 1990; Linares et al., 1992).

Conclusions

Spain was not exempt from the spiral of violence that ran through Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. After the 1982 World Cup, numerous radical groups emerged in Spain, imitating English hooligans and the Italian ultras. They had free run of the football grounds during the 1980s because police authorities considered their behaviour to be simply spontaneous acts of hooliganism. When their acts of vandalism became more organized, the authorities did not know exactly how to handle the situation. There was an increase in violence during the second half of the 1980s, and Spanish public opinion began to be aware of the problem at the beginning of the 1990s. In 1992 a firework set off at RCD Espanyol’s ground killed a youngster, and although radical groups had nothing to do with this serious incident, Spanish authorities now began to take the problem of violence seriously. That same year, the National Commission against Violence in Sport Events was created to implement the objectives established in the 1990 Sports Law. 152 Spanish Football and Social Change

At this point, the skinhead subculture was firmly established among large numbers of radical groups. The skinheads, with a fascist ideology and a paramilitary sartorial style, could be easily and quickly identified, and so they became socially noticeable. The police could easily cordon them off, making it more difficult for them to commit acts of violence. Another tendency that marked the evolution of violence in Spanish football was the emergence of non-violent groups toward the end of the 1990s. The main aim of these groups was to cheer on their teams, and they were against displaying any kind of political symbols to unite members around the clubs’ colours. Violent groups who blamed the pacifist groups for the loss of their key role and social impact victimized them, and a resurgence of violent acts was recorded at this point. At the beginning of the 21st century, the remodelling and modernization of football grounds worsened the situation for the older radical groups of Spanish football fans. Stronger security measures, such as computerized ticketing and numbered seating, dealt them a strong blow. A deep crisis was then brought about by the pessimism of their leaders and internal disputes within the groups. The application of legal and police measures of a preventative and corrective nature produced a clear decline in the number of violent incidents, and the older radical groups managed to free themselves from the dominance or leadership that more aggressive and belligerent individuals had had over them. Furthermore, all of this coincided with the appearance of young groups of fans who were against violence, as well as various operations oriented toward the marginalization of political symbols often exhibited in the stands. 9 Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance

Unlike what is usually assumed, racism is neither a phenomenon of the past nor exclusive to other latitudes. As Wieviorka points out (2009, p. 15), today there has been a surprising return of racism, even in societies that could be expected to be ridding themselves of it. Until the 1960s, the outlook clearly seemed optimistic, as the prevailing idea was that political and economic progress would end up burying phenomena of this type. This hypothesis, however, was soon revealed to be overly optimistic. Racism currently exists in European societies, and it is one of the great challenges of their present and future. Therefore, regardless of future social evolution, it is likely that European societies will be tempted more and more by racism (Wieviorka, 1995). The social sciences began to study racism around the 1920s due to interest in the question of African Americans in the United States and the manifestation of anti-semitism in Germany (Wieviorka, 2009, p. 17). The study of racism occupied a specialized space within disciplines such as sociology and political science until the 1970s when there was a burst of interest in this topic in all branches of human and social sciences (Solomos and Back, 1996, p. xii). In Spain, racism did not begin to be a widely extended topic of study until the 1990s, when the country began to receive flows of immigration and experience a profound change in its demographic structure. In less than a decade, Spain changed from a country of emigration to one of immigration. Thus, on 1 July 2013, the population of Spain passed 47.1 million, of which 5.5 million were of foreign nationali- ties, that is, 11.7 per cent of the total (INE, 2013). This new make-up of Spanish society, strongly contrasting with the greater homogeneity of previous periods, is the framework within which the mass media, NGOs, public administrations and researchers have increased their

153 154 Spanish Football and Social Change level of sensitivity and started to pay more attention to racist and xenophobic behaviours. Sociological studies carried out during the past 15 years show that Spanish society has not remained isolated from the increasing tendency toward racism apparent in other societies. This has been revealed in various studies by María Angeles Cea d’Ancona (2004, 2009) showing that negative attitudes towards immigrants in Spain has increased in recent years, and that there is less and less criticism of violence against foreigners. An especially relevant space for studying racism and xenophobia can be found in football stadiums. Besides providing an incomparable sense of belonging, football stadiums are also an excellent platform for expressing racist and xenophobic attitudes and behaviours. The feeling of dissolution of one’s personal identity – in terms of moral control – and the creation of a collective emotional euphoria produce a sensation of tacit agreement that reduces the influence of inhibitory mechanisms and act as a framework for legitimizing racist and xenophobic behaviours that would probably never be carried out on an individual level. Thus there is a lessening of the moral self-control among fans, accompanied by an emotional contagion that, at times, can lead to violent or racist behaviours. The problem of racism has increased in the last ten years in Spanish football, as shown by the expression of monkey noises toward black players and the use of racist slogans and symbols in stadiums. Since the second half of the 1990s, many football players have been the victims of verbal aggression, xenophobic chants and denigrating gestures, although black and ethnic minority players receive them to a disproportionate degree. These types of incidents are not novel in Spanish stadiums; however, during the past ten years they have begun to cause concern in broad sectors of society and acquire a higher profile in public opinion. The main reason for this has to do with the social alarm created since the beginning of the 21st century, when racist incidents recorded in stadiums occurred with greater frequency, involved a larger number of fans – and not only radical or violent groups, as assumed in the past – and attracted the attention of the mainstream mass media. The impact of some of these incidents went beyond national borders and caught the attention of the European and international mass media, who did not understand the lack of an institutional response to a phenomenon whose dimensions had increased to the point of becoming a true social problem. Of all of them, three incidents had the most influence on passing the ‘Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 155 and Intolerance in Sport’ on 11 July 2007 (Law 19/2007), and all three occurred between 2004 and 2006. The first incident was the controversy created by the words of Luís Aragonés when trying to encourage the Spanish footballer Juan Antonio Reyes, in relation to his teammate at the time at Arsenal, the black French player Thierry Henry, during a training session of the Spanish national team in October 2004 (‘Tell that black shit that you are much better than him. Don’t hold back, tell him. Tell him from me’). The second has to do with xenophobic shouts directed to black English players at the Spain–England match held in the Santiago Bernabéu stadium (Madrid) in November 2004. And the third involved insults received by Samuel Eto’o at Romareda stadium (Zaragoza) in February 2006. The news coverage of these three events was decisive in making society in general, governmental authorities, and Spanish football administrators aware of the growing seriousness of the racism problem in Spanish football, and problems ahead if sufficient measures were not taken quickly. The purpose of this chapter is to add to the study of racism and xenophobia in Spanish football, taking into account recent contributions by other researchers and using them as a starting point (Spaaij and Viñas, 2005; Durán and Jiménez, 2006; Viñas, 2006; Viñas and Spaaij, 2006; Durán and Pardo, 2008; Llopis-Goig, 2009b, 2013c). The study presented here has two objectives: first, to offer a panoramic view of the emergence and development of racism in Spanish football; and second, to present the main anti-racist initiatives promoted and carried out by the Spanish government to prevent and reduce racist behaviour. With these objectives in mind, this chapter is divided into four sections. In the first, some concepts from the scientific study of racism and xenophobia are reviewed and placed within the context of football. The second section provides an overview of the process of the emergence of racism in Spanish football. The third section focuses on the main incidents and events that led to a strong feeling of social alarm about the dimensions racism and xenophobia were acquiring in Spanish football from 2004 to 2006. The fourth section presents the reactions and initiatives carried out by the Spanish government in the past few years to combat racism in football. One of these initiatives was the creation of the Observatory of Racism and Violence in Sport, based on which the Protocol for Actions against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Football was developed. This Protocol was the basis for the development of the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports, which was passed in 2007. The final section discusses the main anti-racist campaigns carried out in the past few years by various associations and NGOs. 156 Spanish Football and Social Change

Some theoretical considerations in the study of racism

The scientific study of racism has focused only very infrequently on the world of sport, perhaps for a variety of reasons. In the first place, there is a strong presumption about the inclusive potential of sports that idealizes it as a vehicle for social integration. It is implicitly assumed that sport, in all its manifestations, promotes social inclusion in a way that is always useful in the fight against social exclusion and racism. On the other hand, the success of some athletes belonging to ethnic minorities in certain elite sport modalities has hindered awareness of the problem of racism in sports. The social renown and professional prestige of these athletes manage to hide the quite different reality to which the majority of the black population or members of other ethnic minorities are exposed. The empirical evidence shows that sport forms a dialectic reality in which it is both a source of social integration and an arena of discrimination. Second, racism in football is a complex phenomenon that manifests itself inconsistently throughout the game (Garland and Rowe, 2001). The capricious nature of expressions of racism within football grounds is perhaps most commonly demonstrated by those fans who racially abuse the black players who play for their opponents, yet cheer those who play for their own side. As Back et al. state: ‘racist abuse in grounds occurs in an intermittent fashion; racist epithets and slogans are invoked in specific contexts and serve particular functions such that a series of fixtures may pass without any racist activity whilst a fixture with a heightened atmosphere or the appropriate circumstances can produce an explosion of racist activity’ (Back et al., 1999, p. 84). In fact, the contradictory nature of racism in sports has made it difficult to grasp its true social magnitude. The existence of racism has even been denied by claiming that incidents that usually appear to be manifestations of racism or xenophobia are really just acts of hooliganism or provocations whose relevance is diluted if one interprets them according to the ‘football code’ (Marcos, 2005, p. 58). Third, concern about racism in football is closely associated with the public’s worry about the organized forms of violence related to it, as racist behaviour in football is generally seen as only one element in a broader group of anti-social behaviours that form the basis of football violence in general (Back et al., 1999, p. 423). From this perspective, racism and xenophobia in football are seen as an extension of the hooligan phenomenon; therefore, no distinction is made between the social processes that sustain both the racist model and hooligan behaviour (Back et al., 1999, p. 425). Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 157

However, the nature of racism and xenophobia in football cannot be separated from the social context in which they develop. The racist slogans and racial insults that are heard in the stadiums are not just the work of certain groups of organized radicals. They reflect a degree of ‘cultural racism’ existing in society that is also manifested in football (Walvin, 1986). The concept of ‘cultural racism’ was introduced at the beginning of the 1980s by political scientist Martin Barker. In his book The New Racism (Barker, 1981), he points out that the legitimization of the racist discourse had moved from one of biological inferiority to one of cultural difference. Thus, racist views were no longer based on a hierarchy or on the natural characteristics attributed to a certain group, but instead referred to cultural, linguistic and religious differences. For Barker, this new form of racism expressed a fear of a threat to the national homogeneity of British society, which, since the 1950s had received large flows of immigration from former colonies of the Commonwealth (Wieviorka, 2009, p. 42). At first glance, this form of racism does not postulate the superiority of certain groups over others. Instead, it emphasizes the harmfulness of the disappearance of borders and the incompatibility of different ways of life and traditions, and emphasizes the threat that the differences of certain groups can present to the identity of the dominant group. At the same time, in other countries, concepts quite similar to ‘cultural racism’ were arising. In France, Pierre-André Taguieff published La Force du préjugéé (1988), in which he talked about ‘differentiated racism’, while in the United States in the 1970s the concept of ‘symbolic racism’ had already been used to describe less obvious forms of the phenomenon appearing in addition to traditional prejudices toward African Americans (Wieviorka, 2009, p. 44). In essence, the logic incorporated into this new racism is one of pure differentiation. It tends to reject social contact and relations and resort to the image of the radically different exterior of ‘different’ human groups where there is no common space in which to form any relation, racist or otherwise. Thus, the new racism would be legitimized less by invoking an inequality of races than by promoting the idea of certain basic and incompatible cultural, national, religious and ethnic specificities (Wieviorka, 1995, p. 33). From this perspective, although the protagonists of the majority of the incidents of a racist and xenophobic nature are radical fans, there is evidence that other types of racist manifestations are often ignored. These expressions of racism can be grouped into three categories: ‘impulsive racism’, ‘instrumental racism’ and ‘institutional racism’ (Durán and Jiménez, 2006, pp. 71–2). ‘Impulsive racism’ consists of racist and 158 Spanish Football and Social Change xenophobic behaviours stemming from frustration and insecurity, based on the perception that the mass influx of immigrants will endanger Spanish identity, as well as the jobs of many Spanish people. In this context, football becomes an exemplar of what could eventually happen in society as a whole, and it constitutes a space where it is easier than in society as a whole to express this impulsive racism. ‘Instrumental racism’ refers to a type of behaviour that demonstrates the contradictory and inconsistent nature of racism, such as when a team’s fans make fun of black players on the other team as a way to distract them, but accept those black players who play on their own team. At times, racist fans insult their own players, although in general they accept them, as long as they play well and help their team win. Thus there is a network of complex negotiations around the identities of the club and its forms of collective belonging that can establish a model of inclusion and exclusion through which some black fans and players are admitted as integrated members, while other minority groups or rival black fans and players are vilified and rejected as foreigners (Back et al., 1999, p. 437). Finally, ‘institutional racism’ occurs when the norms, agreements and practices applied within sports organizations have discriminatory effects, leading to low levels of participation by minorities. These institutionalized forms of racism and xenophobia generally have a more hidden and not necessarily intentional nature. They have become implanted in the routine operations and functioning of organizations, and they are a sign of the integration of racism in daily situations with institutional and routine practices that reflect underlying relations of power. Naturally, the expressions of racism and xenophobia in football stadiums are more public and more easily identified than the institutionalized and semi- institutionalized forms that have tended to characterize the professional football culture (Williams, 1992). This is, undoubtedly, the reason that the majority of the studies on racism in Spanish football refer to fans’ expressions of racism and xenophobia in stadiums (Spaaij and Viñas, 2005; Durán and Jiménez, 2006; Viñas, 2006; Viñas and Spaaij, 2006; Durán and Pardo, 2008; Llopis-Goig, 2009b, 2013c). These types of behaviours fit best within as the categories of ‘impulsive racism’ and ‘instrumental racism’.

An overview of the emergence of racism in Spanish football

Although episodes of racism did not become a true problem for Spanish football until the beginning of the 21st century, there are examples of Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 159 racist events and altercations dating from much earlier, although their occurrence were not really remarked upon until the 1970s and 1980s. During the first third of the 20th century, manifestations of racism were practically nonexistent in Spanish football, as the presence of black footballers was an exception. After the creation of the League (1928–9), the participation of foreign footballers was prohibited, and they were only accepted if they had previously participated in the Spanish Cup or in regional tournaments. For this reason, the first two black footballers in Spanish football – the Brazilians Fausto dos Santos and Jaguaré Bezerra – did not play any official matches with the club they belonged to, FC Barcelona, which tried hard to modify the legislation that prohibited Spanish clubs from signing foreign players. This modification eventually was put in place, and from 1933, two foreigners were accepted per team. After the parenthesis of the Civil War, in the 1940s Francisco Betancourt and Lucio Baptista da Silva became the first black footballers to participate in the League. Betancourt eventually received Spanish nationality, and Baptista da Silva was the first black foreigner to officially debut in the League, in the 1947–8 season. The limitation on the number of foreign players per club was again modified, and in December 1946 the number became unlimited, but this situation only lasted until 1951, when it was reduced to four per team with a maximum of two on the playing field. In August 1953, signing foreign players was again prohibited, until in 1956 the National Delegation of Physical Education and Sport, presided over by José Antonio Elola, repealed the previous prohibition and limited the total number of foreigners to two per club. However, in 1951 the first racist incident occurred involving a black footballer: the Moroccan Ben Barek, known as the Black Pearl, who was then a member of the Atlético de Madrid team. After a match between Atlético de Madrid and Sevilla, in which the Moroccan scored a goal that allowed his team to win the League championship, a fan who had tried to assault him earlier shouted in a threatening tone while the Guardia Civil arrested him: ‘Don’t come back to Sevilla, black shit, because we’ll kill you!’ (Girard, 2006, p. 83). Except for an occasional incident like the one involving Ben Barek, racist incidents were not common during the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, during these years, having a black footballer gave an exotic note of distinction to football clubs, and the term ‘black’ did not have its current pejorative and derogatory connotations (Rodríguez, 2012, p. 217). An example of this is that journalists placed an epithet before the names of footballers, like the Uruguayan playing for Málaga, Negro Gutiérrez, or 160 Spanish Football and Social Change the Honduran playing for Elche, José Indio Cardona. Both ‘black’ and ‘Indian’ were expressions used as football names without any pejorative significance. Likewise, the Angolan Jorge Alberto Mendonça, who arrived in Spain in 1957, recently stated that at that time there were no insulting taunts, and he was called ‘negrito’ in an affectionate tone (Rodríguez, 2012, p. 92). The same thing was true of a Brazilian who played for Valencia FC in the 1960s, Waldo Machado da Silva, called El Negre (The Black) by the fans in the city of Valencia, where he was greatly appreciated. The first racist incident involving a sporting leader occurred in the 1966–7 season. After the National Delegation of Physical Education and Sport – then led by the future President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch – refused to allow FC Barcelona to sign the Brazilian Walter Silva, Barça’s president Enric Llaudet stated: ‘if he can’t play, I’ll use him as my chauffeur. I’ve always wanted to have a black chauffeur.’ A few days later, he had to rectify his statement by saying: ‘I am willing to be Mr Silva’s chauffeur whenever he asks me to’ (Relaño, 1996, p. 34). Xenophobic and racist expressions began to increase in Spanish football in the 1970s. This was related to the growing presence of black players and players from other ethnic minorities on Spanish football teams. The incorporation of foreign players was not a new development at that time, taking into account that a common practice in Spanish clubs in the late sixties and early seventies was to hire players from South American countries under the legal status of oriundos (‘natives’). This led to what was known as the boom of the oriundos. As they were hired on the basis of being a distant relative of a Spaniard, they were not considered foreigners, as only two foreigners could be hired in that context. Football clubs took advantage of this flexibility to hire South American players, and there was a considerable increase in the percentage of dark-skinned foreigners on the teams of the Spanish clubs. In the 1970s, various clubs reinforced their teams with black footballers. The players Alhaji Momodo (Gambia), Rui Manuel Jordão (Angola), Gilberto Silva (Honduras), Carlos Guerini (Argentina), Carlos Gómez Monteiro ‘Pitinho’ (Brazil) or Luiz Edmundo Pereira (Brazil) were victims of racist incidents of various types in the 1970s and 1980s. Another black footballer who came into Spanish football was the Englishman Laurie Cunningham, who in 1979 became part of the Real Madrid team, although he would later play for Sporting de Gijón, Real Betis and Rayo Vallecano. Both he and the goalkeeper on the RCD Espanyol team, Thomas N’Kono, were frequently humiliated with racist and Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 161 xenophobic insults by the followers of rival teams in the 1980s. What until that time had been isolated gestures began to occur with greater frequency, and in the 1990s racism began to be considered a social phenomenon of growing importance. In 1990, the Moroccan goalkeeper playing for Mallorca, Ezaki Badou, was the first foreign footballer who admitted having suffered humiliation and receiving racist insults. During the Real Madrid–Mallorca match in the 1989–90 season, he was the victim of racist jokes by the footballer Hugo Sánchez, who was finally sent off by the referee. Later, in an interview for the newspaper El Pais, Badou revealed that he often received insults from the fans, and that they were common in many football stadiums (Candia, 1996). In the 1990s, racist incidents began to be more common in Spanish football stadiums. In the first half of the 1990s, players like the Englishman Dalian Atkinson on the Real Sociedad de San Sebastián team, the Nigerian forward Rashid Yekini and the Real Madrid player Freddy Rincón were the targets of racist comments. Other victims of these attacks were coaches such as the Argentinean Jorge Valdano, the Portuguese Artur Jorge and the Colombian Francisco Maturana. In this context, there was growing concern about racist incidents, and there began to be signs of an increasing social sensitivity to this problem. The Dutch coach of Valencia CF, Guus Hiddink, for example, marked the beginning of the match between Valencia CF and Albacete Balompié in 1992 by demanding the withdrawal of various flags and posters with Nazi symbols exhibited by the fans of his own team in the stadium. This gesture earned him the First Prize from the Ernest Lluch Foundation ‘for his defence of civility in football’. In the second half of the 1990s, coinciding with the greater presence of black footballers in Spanish football, the number of racist and xenophobic incidents increased. After the so-called Bosman case, Spanish professional football would begin a period of massive hiring of foreign players, and in the 1996–7 season about 150 foreigners were hired from more than 35 different countries. In this same period, and specifically in 1997, the number of immigrants coming to Spain was greater than the number of Spanish people who emigrated abroad for the first time in the history of Spain. It is usually considered, therefore, that from 1997, Spain became a ‘country of immigration’. Since then, the great influx of black footballers to Spanish football fields (and not only in the first and second divisions, but also in all other categories) produced an increase in the number of racist and xenophobic insults, propagated by small groups of radical fans who were often linked to already existing far-right groups. In this way, they expressed their discontent with both the clubs’ hiring 162 Spanish Football and Social Change policies and the increase in the number of immigrants arriving in Spain. Police detentions registered during the different incidents in the second half of the first decade of the 21st century pointed to the relationship between radical football groups and groups with a neo-Nazi ideology, as demonstrated by: the international Hammerskin network operating between the Ultras sur and the White and Blue Brigades (Blanquiazules); the Bastión group, a dissolved section of the Athletic Front; the Huelin Comando, involving radical fans of the Malaga team; the Anti-system Front in Valencia; and Blood and Honour, among others (Ibarra, 2006, p. 17). For this reason, for a long time there was an impression that the incidents were concentrated exclusively in radical groups, which were considered the epicentre of racist and xenophobic behaviours. It was usually assumed that these groups behaved in this way as a kind of reaction to the massive entrance of immigrants in Spanish football and, more specifically, to the changes in Spanish society as a result of the appearance of immigrant communities. From this perspective, the belief was held that racial and xenophobic discrimination was a consequence of the far-right ideology that these radical groups had been developing for years. Racism and xenophobia, therefore, were not problems of the Spanish people in general, but only of the organized minority of radical groups, according to this view. Another reason that racism was not considered a problem for Spanish society as a whole was the high level of permissiveness toward verbal insults and aggression that existed in football stadiums (Fleta, 2008, p. 40). The Spanish sociologist Juan Díez Nicolás summarized this perspective in his statement to the press: ‘the intention is to offend, hurt the other, but there is no underlying racism’ (Borasteros, 2008, p. 41). From this point of view, it was pointed out that Spain did not have a greater number of racist incidents in their football stadiums than other European countries, but it did have a higher level of social permissiveness. In fact, the fans that carried out these verbal aggressions did not view them as racist; therefore they rejected the accusation of racism. For them, these insults were just another way to have fun and provoke the other team. These ideas, however, began to experience a slow but steady modification, based on events that will be described in the next section. Meanwhile, the phenomenon attracted the attention of journalists and analysts from other countries, whose perspective differed from the idea that racist episodes were only a way to have fun and provoke the rival team, or that they were due to the action of minority radical groups. As a study of this problem carried out in eight countries of the Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 163

European Union concluded, the incidents that had occurred in various stadiums showed that the reality was quite different (van Sterkenburg et al., 2005). Racist chants, the emission of monkey noises toward black football players, who were also thrown peanuts and bananas, and even the use of racist symbols and slogans more commonly employed by extreme right-wing groups, showed that the problem existed in the majority of European countries, especially in Spain and Belgium, countries where the situation had more alarming characteristics. There were differences among various countries regarding the stages of development of the problem of racism in football and the attention paid to it. These differences depended on each country’s social development and economic situation, as well as the general flow of immigration and the entrance of black or other ethnic minority players into professional football. For these reasons, according to the aforementioned study, in England, for example, they began to hear the first racist chants in the 1970s and 1980s, while in Germany, France, Italy and Holland, racist behaviour reached its highest level during the 1980s and 1990s. For the same reasons, the phenomenon appeared more recently in Spain and Belgium.

The racist spiral and incidents between 2004 and 2006

Beyond comparative analyses like those mentioned above, the public profile acquired and dimensions achieved by the events themselves were what made racism a serious problem in Spanish football. Although these incidents had been occurring since the second decade of the 1990s, between 2004 and 2006 there was a considerable increase in their numbers. Moreover, the events that occurred during this period were widely covered by the mass media, and their impact went beyond the world of Spanish sport and had an international impact. These incidents were decisive in the progressive sensitization of Spanish society to the seriousness of the problem, and they had a definite influence on the initiative that would be adopted by the government a year later with the passing of the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport (Law 19/2007). The first incident involved the controversy produced when the coach of the Spanish national team, Luís Aragonés, tried to encourage the footballer Reyes by making racist remarks about his teammate at Arsenal, the black French player Thierry Henry. The problem was exacerbated one month later during a friendly match between Spain and England, when a large percentage of Spanish supporters attending the match directed racist insults and chants at the black players on the English national team (Samano and Narrillos, 164 Spanish Football and Social Change

2004, p. 68). This situation was a social wake-up call, as many people realized that racism in football had become a true political problem for Spain. There were other subsequent episodes in Getafe, Albacete and Zaragoza, where numerous fans verbally attacked players like Sissoko, Ronaldinho and Kameni, which only managed to increase perceptions of the severity of the problem. Both events had a high socio-political impact, and their influence went beyond national borders. However, the spiral of racism did not end there. Incidents continued to proliferate until they reached their highest point in February 2006, when a player from Cameroon, Samuel Eto’o, threatened to leave the field during a match between Zaragoza and FC Barcelona in the Romareda stadium (Morenilla and Paradinas, 2006). However, the first event in this spiral occurred on 6 October 2004. The facts were the following: a journalist who was covering the training session of the Spanish national team during their preparation for the match between Spain and Belgium (in the first phase of the 2006 World Cup) overheard the Spanish coach, Luís Aragonés, haranguing the Spanish player Reyes, who then played for Arsenal. Aragonés used a disrespectful phrase with racist connotations about Reyes’ teammate, the black French player Thierry Henry. His exact words were, as noted above: ‘Tell the black guy, I’m better than you! Black piece of shit, I’m better than you!’ The event, which initially went unnoticed in Spanish society, had an enormous impact in England, where numerous media outlets repeated this news item and condemned the words of the Spanish coach. The controversy increased even more when in a press conference before a friendly game between Spain and England, five weeks later at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid, Aragonés, when questioned by the British journalists who had come to cover the match, instead of portraying himself in another light, attacked British colonialism. These comments made the British press even more angry, and they criticized the Spanish Football Federation for not firing Aragonés immediately. Worse still, the Spanish Football Federation not only defended the coach and avoided sanctioning him at first, but it also tried to mini- mize the event. Moreover, it declared – through its press secretary – that the English mass media had orchestrated a campaign to discredit the Spanish coach (Samano and Narrillos, 2004, p. 68). As the newspaper El País pointed out, the Spanish Football Federation’s response was, as usual, disappointing (Segurola, 2004, p. 56). The second event was the abovementioned friendly game between Spain and England, hosted at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium on 17 November of the same year. Many spectators launched racist insults at the black Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 165 players on the English team, such as Ashley Cole, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Rio Ferdinand, Jermaine Jenas and Jermain Defoe. It was obvious that it was not an incident involving members of radical groups, as more than half the spectators who attended the game participated in the incident (around eighty percent according to the numbers published in the Spanish press). The day before, on 16 November, a match had been held between the under-21 teams of the two countries in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). Racist insults were also launched toward black footballers on the English team, including Carlton Cole, Marcus Bent and Glen Jonson. In addition to the local radical groups, a large part of the crowd at the match imitated gestures and sounds made by primates in order to insult the British players. Over the following days, news items relating to these incidents appeared in all the Spanish national media, and the incident also had great international impact. The event transcended the sports world and provoked the public disapproval of the British Prime Minister, who asked the Spanish government and the highest authorities in the world of football to take steps to avoid further racist episodes in Spanish stadiums. FIFA announced an investigation into what had occurred in the two matches between Spain and England. The Spanish government immediately expressed its ‘unequivocal condemnation’ of the behaviour exhibited in the Santiago Bernabéu, but it also asserted that it was an attitude displayed by only a small group of fans who did not represent Spanish fans in general. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, expressed the Spanish government’s apologies for what had occurred. The Secretary of State for Sport, Jaime Lissavetzky, spoke of his ‘absolute repulsion’ and stated that the Superior Sport Council was going to launch a strong fight against racism and xenophobia in sport. The Spanish Football Federation supported the announcement by the Spanish government, almost at the same time that it was accused of a lack of sensitivity to racism and xenophobia by SOS Racism (Samano and Narrillos, 2004). The social alarm had sounded. Racism in football had become a political problem in Spain. From that moment on, Spanish soccer received intense criticism and condemnation. However, on following days, racist insults were heard at some Spanish football fields, and the news media reported them. A feeling of impunity seemed to persist as outbreaks of racism and xenophobia increased, which worsened the situation even more and laid the ground for the repetition of racist incidents at numerous football matches held at that time. What had initially been behaviour typical of radical groups was turning into a sort of ‘perverse fashion’, and many 166 Spanish Football and Social Change

‘ordinary’ people attending matches were being dragged into it. Thus, a few days after the incidents at the Spain–England match, Mohammad Sissoko, a player for Valencia CF, was insulted for the colour of his skin in La Rosaleda stadium in Malaga. That same day, the Brazilian defence player for Real Madrid, Roberto Carlos, was insulted at the Nou Camp, the stadium of FC Barcelona. One week later, two FC Barcelona players, Samuel Eto’o and Ronaldinho, were insulted by local fans during an away match with Getafe. Carlos Kameni, goalkeeper for RCD Espanyol, was the target for racist insults in the Mestalla stadium (Valencia), the Vicente Calderón stadium (Madrid) and the Lluís Companys Olympic stadium (Barcelona). Racist episodes continued to increase in the stadiums without any adequate public order measures being implemented or anyone taking responsibility for the events. The list of players affected by these altercations included Assunçao (Real Betis), Richard Morales (CA Osasuna), Daniel Kome (Getafe CF), Paulo Wanchope (Málaga CF), Felix Ettien (Levante UD) and Edwin Congo (Levante UD). The racist spiral also reached many black players who were not in the first division of Spanish football (Viñas, 2006, p. 278). Years of permissiveness and indolence had allowed the problem to grow to such an extent that it ended up damaging not only football, but also society as a whole. The culminating point in the spiral of racist events, before the passing of the ‘Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport’ in 2007, was the threat of FC Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o to abandon the match between his team and Real Zaragoza at the latter’s La Romareda stadium. This occurred on 26 February 2006. One year earlier, the Cameroonian player had celebrated one of his goals in that same stadium with a so-called ‘monkey dance’, which according to the player himself was a response to racist shouts and peanuts thrown by a sector of the public at La Romareda. Eto’o was the victim of racist abuse in various Spanish stadiums, but the widely disseminated images in which he threatened the referee with leaving the match if the insults and shouts by the Real Zaragoza fans did not stop made this the most famous – or notorious – racism episode in Spanish football. It marked a tipping point in Spanish public opinion, and had a decisive influence on the measures and actions that would be adopted in the coming years. All these events occurred at a time when the European Council had asked the governments of the European Union countries to increase their efforts to stop what some news media had already defined as a new wave of xenophobia and anti-semitism (Marcos, 2005, p. 58). Moreover, they occurred in novel circumstances, given the new social structure created by immigration in Spanish society. Finally, these events began a Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 167 process of raising the profile of the problem of racism and xenophobia in Spanish football. This process was similar in many ways to the large amount of attention paid by the news media to the violence of radical groups at the beginning of the 1990s (Spaaij and Viñas, 2005). The media coverage accentuated the issue in two ways. First, it helped to foster concern about racism and xenophobia in football by dedicating greater and more intense attention to the problem. Compared to periods preceding the events at the end of 2004, there were many more news reports about racism in Spanish football (Viñas and Spaaij, 2006, p. 63). Second, however, the media’s focus on the behaviour of these radicals provided these groups with the publicity they sought, thus helping to sustain and increase the frequency of their acts (Murphy et al., 1990). Rather than being seen as the result of alarmist exaggerations, racism was now seen as a true problem in Spanish football and, importantly, not only were a few radical groups contributing to it, but also broad sectors of the population.

The government’s response to racism in football

The social context referred to in the previous section is the space in which responses to racism and xenophobia in Spain should be seen to reside. This section discusses the response by the Spanish government, which specifically consisted of creating an Observatory on Racism and Violence in Sport. The Observatory elaborated a Protocol for Actions against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Football, and later introduced the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport. Regarding the governmental response to racism in Spanish football, on 22 December 2004 the Observatory of Racism and Violence in Sport was established, largely due to the high profile achieved in both the news media and society as a whole of the events of the previous months. The initiative was promoted by the government of the left- wing party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) only nine months after winning the election. After eight years of government (1996–2004) by the conservative party (Partido Popular, PP), the PSOE won the election in March 2004. They remained in power for a total of almost eight years after renewing their majority in the March 2008 election. The second legislature ended a few months early and made way for a government run by the PP, who obtained an absolute majority in the November 2011 election. The main purpose of the Observatory is to fight racism, xenophobia, violence and intolerance in the various sport 168 Spanish Football and Social Change contexts, and defend the ethical values of sport, especially intercultural integration (Durán, 2006, p. 147). Likewise, the body aims to defend and protect the rights of citizens who find themselves discriminated against in practising sport. As far as its composition is concerned, the Observatory is headed by an individual proposed by the Superior Council on Sports and the Interior Ministry, and it comprises representatives of public and private institutions designated by these bodies. Following the recommendations of the European Commission for the constitution of bodies specializing in the fight against racism and xenophobia, this Observatory had 12 functions, which included: contribute to the elimination of expressions of racism and intolerance in sports; promote the elimination of those obstacles of a normative, institutional or social nature that impede integration through sport; channel and orient the complaints of people who have been victims of racist attitudes and behaviours; propose or elaborate reports on racism in sports; and propose and carry out actions, awareness programs and prevention campaigns about racism (Durán, 2006, pp. 148–9). Among the initial actions taken by the Observatory, the most significant was the preparation of a ‘Protocol for Action against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Football’, which senior representatives of Spanish football signed in a public act at the headquarters of the Superior Council on Sports on 18 March 2005 (Durán, 2006, p. 150). Based on this commitment, the signatories to the Protocol demanded the fulfilment of three types of measures. First, ‘measures of prevention and protection of the physical and moral integrity of the victims of racist, xenophobic and intolerant acts in the ambit of sports’, one of which was the Guide to actions against racism in football and an Action Plan against racism with internal disciplinary measures and measures to promote awareness and sensitivity of personnel, as well as actions directed toward prohibiting, eradicating and preventing the diffusion of messages, symbols and slogans with racist, xenophobic or intolerant content. Second, the Protocol includes ‘measures to locate and control participants in racist, xenophobic, intolerant and violent incidents in football’ as a way to complement preventative actions with identification and sanctioning of offenders by implementing a specific intervention plan to prevent and repress outbreaks of racism, xenophobia and intolerance in professional football. Finally, the Protocol also includes a series of measures related to the repression and sanctioning of racist, xenophobic, intolerant and violent incidents in football. This Protocol formed the basis for the development of the Proposed ‘Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports’. Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 169

On 1 July 2007, the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports (Law 19/2007) was passed, with the purpose of eradicating these types of behaviour and fostering fair play, co-existence, citizen safety and public order at sport events. This Law set out sanctions for acts of this type, and it specified the responsibilities and obligations of the organizers of sport competitions and events and the spectators at these kinds of events. Thus, for example, from the time the Law went into effect, it was forbidden to provide or facilitate means of transportation, sites, subsidies, free tickets, publicity discounts or diffusion to people or fans who had previously performed acts of a violent nature. On the other hand, the Law stipulated that the organizers of sport competitions and events should install closed-circuit television to record the entrances and the entire sport installation, including the outside area. Likewise, it required that all those sport installations where professional competitions were held should include a computerized control and management system, both for ticket sales and to control access to the site (Ibarra, 2008, p. 29). Referees were also granted the power to provisionally or definitively suspend a football match if violent or racist incidents occurred during it. Incidents were classified into three groups: minor, serious and very serious. The last included making threatening statements or inciting violence, as well as the creation of a hostile climate among those who participate in a sporting match, competition or event. Very serious infractions also included the dissemination of content that could be considered to promote violence or incite violent or terrorist, racist or intolerant behaviours on the basis of religion, ideology or sexual preference, or express extreme hostility or disdain toward participants in the competition. For all behaviours classified as very serious, financial sanctions imposed were set at between 60,000 and 650,000 euros, with the additional possibility that the organizer may be disqualified by law for a maximum of two years, and installations closed, also for a maximum of two years. The disciplinary regime also established, among the very serious sanctions, the banning of individuals from holding positions of responsibility in a sport organization or the suspension of the federation licence for a period of between two and five years, or even permanently in cases of repeat offences or extremely serious infractions (Ibarra, 2008, p. 30). The Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports (Law 19/2007) also involved a broadening of the scope of action of the already existing National Commission against Violence in Sport Events (mentioned in Chapter 8), which now came to be 170 Spanish Football and Social Change called the National Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports. Law 19/2007 granted to its permanent Commission the power to promote preventative actions and propose sanctions based on reports prepared by Security Coordinators after matches. As the offences of racism and xenophobia became codified in the Law, the annual reports of the Commission began to reflect the number of proposed sanctions that it formulated each season for racist or xenophobic offences. This first occurred in the 2004–5 season; up to then racist acts had been integrated in the section on ‘violent propaganda or signs’. According to the information included in these records, and as Table 9.1 shows, in the last nine seasons for which information is available, there were a total of 147 racist and/or xenophobic incidents that led to a proposed sanction by the National Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports. It should be kept in mind, however, that the data in the table do not include the sanctions or actions that the Spanish Football Federation carried out within its own sport discipline regime. The data reveal that from the 2004–5 season until the 2010–11 season, Spanish professional football experienced a clear increase in racist and xenophobic incidents. A turning point took place in the 2011–12 season, when there was a sharp decline that continued into the following season.

Table 9.1 Evolution of sanction proposals for racist or xenophobic offences in Spanish professional football

Season Inside the stadium Outside the stadium Total

2004–05 8 – 8 2005–06 16 –16 2006–07* * 11 2007–08 18 4 22 2008–09 * * 21 2009–10 15 11 26 2010–11 17 10 27 2011–12 5 2 7 2012–13 729

* Not available. Source: Annual Records of the National Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports (Consejo Superior de Deportes). Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 171

Anti-racist campaigns and initiatives led by associations and civil society

Apart from the measures and initiatives promoted by governmental agencies, it is important mention the involvement of other social actors. A relevant role was played by non-governmental organizations such SOS Racism, which in 1997 denounced the Ultras Sur group for a series of graffiti paintings on the façade of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium; these included Nazi symbols along with clearly racist and xenophobic slogans. SOS Racism regarded these images as a serious provocation – taking into account that they appeared a few hours before a charity game against racism – and that they constituted crimes of inciting racial hatred and xenophobia. In addition to the many actions taken by this organization to combat racism and xenophobia, since 2005 it has published an Annual Report on Racism in the Spanish State, which regularly provides information about racist incidents or the spread of neo-Nazi ideology in Spanish football stadiums. Another association combating racism and xenophobia in Spanish society is the Movement against Intolerance (Movimiento contra la Intolerancia, MCI). While its interests and activities are broad-based, it has not been indifferent to the problem of racism in football, as shown by its active participation in the different phases that led to the creation of the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports (Law 19/2007) (Rodríguez, 2012, p. 209). Every quarter, the MCI pub- lishes the Raxen Report (acronym for racism and xenophobia), which includes information about the racist acts that have occurred in different settings in and regions of Spanish society, at times referring specifically to the world of football. The President of the MCI, Esteban Ibarra, is also the author of the book Los crímenes del odio (Hate Crimes) (Ibarra, 2003), in which he devotes a chapter specifically to the way certain violent groups are spreading hate and racism in the stands of Spanish football stadiums. Unlike the emphasis of the aforementioned associations on report- ing racism and xenophobia, the Social Prevention and Intervention Collective of Andalusia (Colectivo de Prevención e Intervención Social de Andalucía, CEPA) develops social intervention programs directed toward various groups facing situations of social difficulty or exclusion. One of these programs, Football without Borders, promotes initiatives designed to uncover discrimination in stadiums and promote understanding, equality, tolerance and respect among football fans. This program, in turn, encompasses various specific projects. One of them is the ‘Cadism against discrimination’, which aimed to bring together different groups 172 Spanish Football and Social Change related to Cádiz Football Club, such as fans, members of the club and immigrant associations, to promote actions and activities to increase awareness. A second project carried out within the Football without Borders program is ‘Andalusians for Tolerance’. It is mainly activated in schools where a range of workshops are held to promote interculturality. Third, Football without Borders is complemented by ‘Hincha’, a project carried out and directed by young people who use the love of football to improve the daily lives of the participants and the society around them. The ‘Hincha’ project encourages the attendance and participation of young people in the football experience, it protects young people in situations of danger (for themselves and for others), and it promotes their personal and social development. Apart from the activities developed by these and other similar organizations, public statements, promotions and campaigns by other actors in the football world are also worthy of note. It is important to mention the football players, coaches or directors of clubs who have either publicly disapproved of insults toward black or other ethnic minority players, or have even become involved in campaigns against racist and xenophobic attitudes. In this sense, players such as Samuel Eto’o, Felix Ettien and Mohamed Sissoko (who at that time were playing at FC Barcelona, Levante UD and Valencia CF, respectively) have expressed their abhorrence of the insults they have received in stadiums, and they have demanded that institutions take action against such expressions of racism.

Conclusions

Although racist and xenophobic behaviours are not a novelty in Spanish football, the attention that has been paid to this phenomenon by the press in the last decade is new. It is important, however, to consider the complexity and multi-faceted nature of the phenomenon and avoid the tendency to regard racism as a behaviour exclusive to organized radical groups. The forms of racism in Spanish football are diverse, and include not only visible manifestations (monkey noises and the exhibition of neo-Nazi symbols), but also other more subtle expressions. What is emerging now is a new type of racism that is not based on biological differences, but on perceptions of cultural difference or incompatibility. This chapter has shown that racist and xenophobic behaviours are a social reality in first and second division Spanish football stadiums. Importantly, although the available data inevitably refer to the most visible part of the phenomenon, expressions of racism are certainly not exclusive to organized radical groups. Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance 173

Faced with this reality, Spanish society has not remained passive. Instead, there have been a variety of reactions. This chapter has described the range of responses coordinated by the Spanish government between 2004 and 2008, when it created the Observatory of Racism and Violence in Sport, developed the Protocol for Action against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Football, and passed the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports, which together constituted a broad legal offensive against racism in Spanish football. Although several years have passed since these measures came into force, there is still no official public evaluation of the results and effects they have had on Spanish society. In spite of this, it seems plausible to affirm that the alarming level of racism in Spanish stadiums in the late 2000s has been considerably reduced. However, governmental actions have not been the only key to this reduction in racist incidents. Civil society organizations also carried out numerous initiatives to combat racism, as demonstrated by the projects developed by SOS Racism, the Movement against Intolerance (Movimiento contra la Intolerancia, MCI) or the Social Prevention and Insertion Collective of Andalusia (Colectivo de Prevención e Intervención de Andalucía, CEPA). During the coming years, the fight against racism and xenophobia will require the continuous effort of the various participants in the world of football, as well as an evaluation of the efficacy of the diverse initiatives implemented during the past few years, both those of a governmental nature and those emerging from civil society. Conclusion

One of the first and most memorable – at least for Spaniards – slogans projecting the tourist image of Spain to the rest of the world was ‘Spain is different’. Used in the 1950s and 1960s, it became fixed in Spaniards’ memories, and even today it is commonly used to justify aspects about which Spanish people find it difficult to reconcile with the standards and lifestyles of their European neighbours. Recently, El País newspaper published an interesting and thorough report with this same title (El País, 1 June 2014), describing the 11 distinctive traits of current Spain. As would be expected, the list of unfavourable traits was not brief and included aspects related to the high rate of unemployment currently battering the country, the enormous increase in social inequality registered in recent years, the lack of cultural investment and consumption, the high rates of consumption of cannabis and cocaine, the high cost of communications services (telephone, internet), and the maintenance of work schedules that, to simplify, could be described as inconvenient. Along with these traits, other more positive ones were mentioned, such as the high number of smartphone users, the high life expectancy at birth, the high level of tolerance toward divorce and homosexuality, the low homicide rate, and the possession of a most extensive high-speed train network. It is difficult to know whether the list was complete or not. Although 11 is a resonant number in football terms, it would have been much better for a list of these characteristics to reach a dozen. This would have made it possible to add one more trait, about which many Spaniards would not have had any doubt if, for example, they had been asked in a survey: the passion and significance that football has for Spanish society. And they would have been right, as the data analysed throughout this book show that football is one of the most common topics

174 Conclusion 175 of conversation among Spaniards, it is the sport that creates the most interest and is the one practised the most – both at competitive and recreational levels – and its television audiences and spectators in the stadium are unmatched by any other sport, or cultural or artistic event. If all this were not enough, its total share of GNP is close to one per cent, which clearly shows the hegemony of this sport in the leisure system of Spanish society. However, although for the moment there is no comparative quantitative information available, it does not seem reckless to imagine that other countries – both European and non-European – could present the same or similar data related to the interest, practice and consumption of football. Therefore, this trait would not be specific to Spain but, as this book has proposed, its role as a secular ritual would be. Football in Spain is currently a collective space of participation and emotional exchange that acts as an element of social structuring, produces feelings of identification and introduces ruptures and discontinuities to the organization of daily life. This combination of elements makes football a public space where collective effervescence and a feeling of communitas that seemed to have been eradicated from modern societies emerge. Thus one of the most characteristic tendencies of the late modern age – the movement of the field of ritual from the social nucleus toward the periphery – has provided football with an unusual and exceptional symbolic centrality. Contributing to the consolidation of this process is the deeply ritualistic character of Spanish people, as well as their strong attachment to religious, cultural and artistic traditions, to which football has been added as just another element since the beginning of the 20th century. However, there is a second crucially important aspect affecting the understanding of the role of football in contemporary Spanish society: the population’s high level of identification with the main football clubs. The intensity of this situation can be attributed to the fact that, in the first third of the 20th century, these clubs became a representation of the cities or regions where they emerged, establishing a strong emotional symbiosis that has endured over time, in spite of the strong transformations experienced by Spanish football since then. This was especially true in the cases of Athletic Club de Bilbao and FC Barcelona, which gradually became nationalist symbols of their regions of origin. Although with less intensity, the same tendency occurred in other football clubs during the transition to democracy, making them a sort of extension of local and regional cultures that reached levels of social adhesion that exceeded the proportion of people just interested in football. 176 Spanish Football and Social Change

Equally relevant in understanding the social importance of football is its transformation during Franco’s dictatorship into one of the few sporting practices available to a broad majority of the population, and the spectacle most preferred by Spaniards. In a context in which radio and television began to take advantage of the potential of this sport, the Spanish national team acquired strong national symbolism. Its image was associated with the myth of the Spanish fury – a stereotype emerging from the 1920 Olympic Games that would survive throughout most of the 20th century. According to this stereotype, courage and virility were the characteristics of the Spanish playing style and, therefore, the well from which players could draw from to improve their competitive performance. However, except for the isolated victory in the 1964 European Nations’ Championship, the Spanish national team’s results were mediocre. Therefore, it is not surprising that Real Madrid, thanks to its victories in the first five editions of the European Cup (1956 to 1960), would become the most important club in the country and acquire the image of the ‘regime’s team’. In the 1960s, Catalan and Basque nationalisms had already found in football a way to express their demands, which increased with the arrival of democracy in 1978. At that point, the patriotic vocabulary that accompanied the Spanish national team’s playing style finally withered away. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Spanish national team and Real Madrid lost their centrality: a plurinational Spain was emerging in the stadiums and was about to transform the football scenario into a more plural and complex space. However, the identitary map of Spanish football that arose in the period of transition to democracy has not remained unaltered in recent years. On the one hand, there has been an increase in the relevance of football as a space of identification, reaching two-thirds of the adult population. This number shows the drawing power of Spanish football clubs, as well as how little these feelings of identification have been affected by social changes or economic transformations in football in recent decades. In fact, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have consolidated a hegemonic position within this map of identifications that allows them to attract more than half of all identifications. Although there are historical reasons for the predominance of these two clubs (social significance, economic potential or the large size of the cities), it would not be fair to ignore the influence of the system of negotiation and distribution of television rights to football matches in Spain. This topic is discussed frequently, as the majority of the clubs understand that the current system benefits the two giants of Spanish football and leaves the others with little opportunity to compete in a balanced way. Conclusion 177

The organizational transformation of these two clubs into two giants of world sport has also occurred, although on a smaller scale, in other football clubs. Emerging as sporting sociability associations during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, clubs’ transformation into Public Limited Sports Companies (SADs, Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas) in the 1990s strongly affected their subsequent evolution. Moreover, this process coincided with the progressive commercialization and liberalization of football in the context of economic globalization, which, at an internal level, fostered the expansion of organizational structures, the growth of the number of subsystems, the division of functions, and the increasing relevance of the commercial and marketing functions. The leaders of this organizational transformation, rather than mere football clubs, are in effect major firms operating in the broader sector of entertainment and leisure, sometimes at a global level. Various chapters of this book have examined the fans’ perspective of the current configuration and functioning of Spanish football clubs. One of the aspects studied – their transformation into Public Limited Sports Companies – revealed the existence of a sense of symbolic ownership of the clubs among the fans. This explains the fact that the majority of the fans continue to consider themselves as members, even though the clubs’ transformation into Public Limited Sports Companies (SADs) confines them to the role of spectators an/or consumers. The paternalism and localism of most club presidents, and local authorities’ interest in preventing the involvement of foreign investors as shareholders, are elements that contributed to fans not being completely aware of the implications of the clubs’ transformation into SADs. Identification with clubs continues to be important in a scenario of progressive detraditionalization and deterritorialization that restricts the socializing influence of the family and the local community, but strengthens the actions of the news media and social networks. The penetration of commercial logic increases the spectacle and attraction of football, enhancing its fun-festive dimension and greatly increasing the level of its consumption. Fans accept their position as spectators without much concern, becoming hyper-consumers of football. However, they are aware of some of the ambivalences in their relationship with football, such as the growing dissonance between the attraction due to its spectacle and the progressive loss of competitive balance, or even the economic unsustainability faced by the majority of the clubs. Along with the aspects mentioned above, this book has also addressed other dimensions of the football culture of Spanish fans. Attention has been paid to both the dynamic of gender identities and to expressions 178 Spanish Football and Social Change of violence and racism. Regarding the former, the degree to which the greater pluralism and heterogeneity that characterize the construction of masculinity in current Spanish society are also found in the world of football was explored. It was concluded that football continues to function as a space of machismo, relatively removed from the tendency toward redefining masculinity that has developed in other spaces of social life, and even in other sports modalities. At junior levels of professional football, young people are oriented toward aggressive behaviour as a means of increasing competitiveness. In stadiums, the fans demand that footballers constantly exhibit physical effort and virility. In both cases there exist inductor masculinities, that is, a type of masculinity that derives from those – such as fathers and coaches – who promote and facilitate the reproduction of hegemonic masculinity. It is not surprising, therefore, that the promotion of hegemonic masculinity in the world of football has turned it into a space that is ‘impenetrable to women’, an aspect that must be taken into account in explaining the appearance of the female peñas. Episodes of violence and racist incidents involving more or less broad groups of football fans have been the object of analysis in various chapters of this book. After the 1982 World Cup, hosted by Spain, numerous radical groups appeared that emulated both English hooligans and Italian ultras. Viewed initially as mere troublemakers, at the beginning of the 1990s Spanish public opinion began to be aware of the scope of the problem, in light of the extraordinary increase in the number of acts of vandalism and violence. At that time, skinheadd culture had already been introduced into a large number of radical groups. The highly visible paramilitary and fascist aesthetic that characterized them, as well as the creation in 1992 of the National Commission against Violence in Sport Events, made it possible for the police to tighten their control over these groups. At the beginning of the 21st century, the remodelling of football grounds and the introduction of stronger security measures, along with the application of legal and police measures of a preventative and corrective nature, resulted in a clear decline in the number of violent incidents. Almost at the same time that acts of violence declined and were no longer the main problem facing Spanish football, another social problem arose – racism and xenophobia toward foreign footballers – which was initially viewed as a continuation of the previous problem, as it was considered a behaviour exclusive to organized radical groups. However, it was soon perceived that imitating gestures and sounds of primates or throwing peanuts and bananas in order to offend certain footballers were behaviours performed not only by minority groups of fans, but by Conclusion 179 large numbers of seemingly ‘ordinary’ spectators. In response to this, between 2004 and 2008 the Observatory of Racism and Violence in Sport was created, the Protocol for Action against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Football was developed, and the Law against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sports was passed. Currently, although an isolated incident may arise, it can be stated that racism is not as serious a problem as it once was. Undoubtedly, legal and police measures, as well as the actions of numerous NGOs and actors from civil society, have been the key to this. It remains to be seen, however, whether the battle to fight racism and xenophobia in football can move beyond controlling the behaviour of the fans in stadiums and can achieve a greater integration of the immigrant population in this sport. The Spanish national team is the third topic analysed in various chapters of this book. The analysis had two common threads: the way the national team has related to Spanish national identity; and the stereotypes associated with their playing style. These two topics have been closely united since the Spanish national team was formed in 1920 to participate in the Olympic Games in Antwerp. It was precisely at that point that the European press used the expression Spanish fury for the first time to refer to the aggressive and not very sophisticated playing style of the Spaniards, which in reality was nothing more than a projection of the Spanish black legend, dating back to the 16th century, to its way of playing football. The expression, however, became popular with the Spanish press, who transformed it into something positive by replacing the negatively regarded aggression and wildness into the virtues of courage, virility and patriotism. Franco’s regime was comfortable with the stereotype of the Spanish fury. In fact, the regime’s politicization of sport had one of its main launching points in football. The Spanish national team had to change their red shirts for blue ones, and the players were asked to line up and perform the fascist salute before matches. The Spanish national team’s matches were ceremonies of patriotism in which the myth of the Spanish fury fitted perfectly. In the transition to democracy, however, this patriotic discourse gradually vanished, and while the use of the stereotype of the Spanish fury did not disappear entirely, it declined considerably. It began to lose prestige because of its association with Francoism, and because peripheral regional nationalisms began to acquire importance in Spanish society, where a quasi-federal territorial organization model, based on Autonomous Communities, began to take shape. Almost at the same time that the stereotype of the Spanish fury lost its momentum, a critical-pessimist discourse began that would reach its 180 Spanish Football and Social Change highpoint during the 1990s. This discourse mixed various components, such as a supposed lack of patriotism among the players that was closely related to the country’s identitary conflicts, the anxiety created by the excessive feeling of responsibility that tormented the players in competitions, and even a lack of self-esteem, as well as an exaggerated sense of victimization and bad luck. All of these aspects were components of patriotic anorexia and the responsibility effect. Both continued to be part of common discourse right up to the celebration of the Spanish victory in Euro 2008, when, in the run-up to and during the tournament, the national team experienced critical moments that endangered their qualification for the final phase. But Spain won the final against Germany, and it was proclaimed champion with a playing style that received praise from fans and news media all over the world, a style that was almost the antithesis of the Spanish fury. This style, known in Spain as ‘tiki-taka’, developed from a large number of influences that had been taking shape in Spain during previous decades. Among them, it is important to highlight the ‘total football’ practised by Holland in the second half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s; this style reached FC Barcelona thanks to coach Johan Cruyff in the 1990s, and later reappeared under Pep Guardiola in the 2000s. However, the coach and creator of the victorious Spanish national team, Luis Aragonés, surprised everyone immediately after Euro 2008 by announcing that he was leaving his position as coach of ‘la Roja’ (‘the Reds’), as he liked to call them. Vicente del Bosque, Aragonés’ successor as the coach of the Spanish national ream, maintained the national team’s organization and playing style and achieved victory in both the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012. Spanish football had changed forever, and the complexes, fears and weaknesses of the past had made way for a better future. The national team’s three consecutive victories in the two main global football tournaments had a strong emotional impact on Spanish society, which at the same time was going through one of the worst periods of economic crisis and recession it had ever experienced. The victories provoked large public manifestations of collective enthusiasm and euphoria, and they fostered a certain rediscovery of national identity. The national flags were waved in the streets, and sport became the glue in a society devastated by economic crisis and bankrupted by the political class. Therefore, football seemed the only reason to feel proud of being Spanish. However, not even these victories allowed Spaniards to forget that the dream had an expiration date. Thus, when the Spanish team was eliminated after a defeat by Chile in the 2014 World Conclusion 181

Cup held in Brazil, many Spaniards thought things had returned to the way they had always been.

‘End of Reign’

The rest of this chapter is a sort of epilogue that offers an analysis of the Spanish national team’s performance in Brazil. Chance would have it that shortly before finishing the writing of these lines, Spain was eliminated from a tournament in which it had been the favourite, and in which four years earlier it had reached the heights of world football. This elimination meant the end of a victorious cycle for the Spanish national team that could not be omitted from this book. Indeed, five days after a 1–5 defeat in their first game, against the Netherlands, the Spanish national team was eliminated from the tournament after defeat in their second match, against Chile, by 2-0. Since the FIFA World Cup in France in 1998, Spain had not been eliminated from this competition in the first round. However, in that era, the Spanish team had completely interiorized the critical-pessimist discourse mentioned above. Against Chile, the Spanish national team made it quite clear that the overwhelming defeat against Holland was not just a chance event. It is possible that the defeat against Chile was largely influenced by the effects of the defeat by the Dutch, but it is also true that for 90 minutes Spain was unrecognizable as a team, due to the vulnerability and predictability with which they moved across the playing field. Chile dominated the field, and the Spanish team lost their spark and rhythm. The embers of ‘tiki-taka’ had been extinguished without a trace, leaving the Spanish team without a soul. ‘End of the Spanish Reign’ was the headline with which the French newspaper Le Parisien described the elimination of Spain from the 2014 World Cup one day after the match with Chile. The use of the word ‘reign’ does not seem unintentional, as only a few weeks previously King Juan Carlos I had abdicated the throne, with his son Felipe de Borbón named as his successor. Another French newspaper, L’Équipe, talked about a ‘shipwreck’ and stated that a cycle had ended for a world champion that had dominated world football since 2008. In a tone similar to Le Parisien, in its inner pages it stated: ‘The crown to earth. It is the death of the first great team of the 21st century.’ L’Équipe mentioned the poor physical condition of the footballers as a possible explanation for what had occurred, and it pointed out that their failure had been almost as spectacular as their glory had been. It then added that the team had been showing signs of fatigue for 182 Spanish Football and Social Change some time, citing the defeat suffered a year before in the final of the Confederations Cup against Brazil. Although the debate about the lack of renewal of the team began right after Spain was eliminated from the tournament, the truth is that very few voices had warned of this danger. Vicente del Bosque had maintained the spinal column of the team fairly intact over recent years. In fact, 11 of the 23 players selected to play in Brazil had won the titles in 2008, 2010 and 2012. From Euro 2008 to the 2010 World Cup, there were eight changes, and from that time to Euro 2012, only four. The squad of players selected for Brazil did not provoke any debate in the world of football or in the news media. The only players missing were Navas, Negredo and Llorente, none of whom had ever been starters for the Spanish national team. Moreover, the mean age of the players was close to that of many previous tournaments. In the final matches in 2008, 2010 and 2012, the mean age of the team had been 26.1, 26.8 and 27.1, respectively. In Brazil the average age of the team that played against the Netherlands was 28.3, and against Chile, 27.4. It is true, however, that the injuries of Thiago and Jesé affected Vicente del Bosque’s plans and deprived him of two players who could have revitalized the group, as Piqué, Pedrito and Busquets did in 2010, or Jordi Alba did in 2012. On the other hand, the national coach did not count on Isco, and he did not select Iturraspe in the end, even though there were clear doubts about the physical condition of Alonso and Piqué. The cases of Casillas and Xavi, the two great symbols of the three consecutive victories of the Spanish national team, were different. Both were experiencing a period of some decline. While the former felt the weight of two seasons of instability as the goalie for Real Madrid, in the case of the Catalan midfielder the causes were the inevitable effects of the biological clock. Due to the poor condition of the midfield master Xavi – the true author of the triumph in the three previous tournaments – the team came undone. Nobody protested about the absence of midfielders of great quality such as Gabi, Iturraspe, Herrera or Parejo in Vicente del Bosque’s line-up, compared to the proven quality of footballers such as Iniesta, Silva, Alonso, Busquets or even Xavi. However, this was the crucial area of the pitch where weakness was the most apparent, and it led to the unravelling of ‘tiki-taka’. No less serious was what occurred in the defence, whose loss of conviction was so obvious that it ended up lowering the team’s confidence and increasing that of opposing teams. As for forwards, it was an error to include Diego Costa. The Hispano- Brazilian never felt like part of the Spanish team. He was a foreign body Conclusion 183 resistant to the team’s style, and his presence seemed to correspond to a possible obligation foisted upon Vicente del Bosque when the player chose Spain over Brazil. In another vein, many people in Spain have linked the elimination of the Spanish national team to the decline of FC Barcelona – the true spinal column of the national team – in the 2013–14 season. The truth, however, is that in the first half of the game against the Netherlands, Xavi and Iniesta were the best players on the team. There was also talk of self-satisfaction or over-confidence being keys to the fall of the Spanish team. In some statements to the news media, Xabi Alonso expressed both self-criticism and dissatisfaction with the performance and mentality of the Spanish team, declaring that they had not been able to maintain ‘the conviction, hunger and ambition in going for the championship’. Players such as Iniesta, however, disagreed with these opinions. It is of course possible that repeated success makes footballers too comfortable. But the technical and tactical explanations of this sudden ‘end of reign’ are actually secondary. What remains is the unequalled series of three consecutive victories in the game that Spanish society prizes more than any other of its popular passions. At a time of great economic turmoil, football provided an opportunity to experience self-esteem as a community: being the undisputed number one in a worldwide competitive activity and earning the respect of the all other competitors without exception, creates a deep feeling of collective recognition that is essential for any community. The Spanish people is, in its overwhelming majority, not so naïve as to believe that football can heal the economic, political and social wounds of a society, but collective memory is not only made up by economic figures, political tensions and social struggles. Symbolic landmarks of shared positive emotions cannot be underestimated in the history of a nation. Between 2008 and 2014 football has offered Spain moments of togetherness that were and will be, in the best sense of the world, unforgettable. They will be remembered with gratitude. References

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ABC 43, 69, 144 BBVA League 14 Adecco 23, 184 Beckham, David 81 Adelante League 14 Belausteguigoitia, José María 65, 184 age and football 12–18 Belgium 43, 65, 69, 163, 164 Alavés, Deportivo 101 Bellah, Robert 23, 184 Alba, Jordi 182 Bernabéu stadium 155, 164–5, 171 Alfonso XIII 28 Bernabéu, Santiago (president of Real Alonso, Xabier 74, 78, 182–3 Madrid) 39 ambivalence 3, 6, 104–18, 177, 184 Billig, Michael 100, 184 Andalusia 42, 171–3 black legend (leyenda negra) 31, 179 anti-structure 21, 23 Boixos Nois 142–3, 145 apathy 115, 116, 118 Bosman ruling 10, 51, 161 Aragonés, Luis 73, 77–9, 81, 84, 155, Bosque, Vicente del 81–3, 84, 180, 163–4, 180 182–3 Arbeloa, Álvaro 74 Brazil 181–3 Arconada, Luis 43 Brigadas Blanquiazules 142–3 Argentina 78, 81, 160 Bromberger, Christian 9, 17, 19, 21, Association of Spanish Footballers 22, 26, 48, 185 (Asociación de Futbolistas bullfights 34 Españoles, AFE) 41 Burns, Jimmy 48, 66–9, 78, 82, 185 Asturias 29, 32 Busquets, Sergio 182 Athletic de Bilbao 27, 29–30, 35, Butragueño, Emilio 69 39, 42, 44, 46, 52–6, 59, 61, 65, 93, 110–1, 121 Camacho, José Antonio 43, 69, 80 Atlético Aviación 34 Cañizares, Santiago 77 Atlético de Madrid 15, 27, 44, 52–6, Capello, Fabio 80 58–61, 75, 159 Carr, Raymond 34, 185 attendance (at stadiums) 14–15, Catalanism 30, 44, 198 49–51, 58–9, 62, 100, 108, 113, 120, Catalonia 29–30, 32–3, 39–40, 42, 135, 139, 172, 189, 194 46, 52, 56–8, 61, 68, 72, 110, 193 audiences (television) 13–5, 17, 20, celebrities 6, 109, 118 24, 39, 35, 45, 49, 76, 88, 146, 175 Celta de Vigo 52–3 Auge, Marc 19, 184 Chamartín stadium 34 Autonomous Communities (state Champions League 11, 22, 35, 71, of) 42, 44, 71–2, 110, 148, 179 77, 81–2 Chelsea 82 banal regionalism 100, 184 Chile 37, 180, 181–2 Barcelona (city) 166 Civil War 4, 28–30, 33–4, 36–40, basketball 10, 12, 14, 20, 23, 24, 73, 93 65–7, 90, 159 Basque Country 29, 30, 32–3, 39–40, Clemente, Javier 79 42, 46, 68, 72, 110–11 club ownership 89, 93, 98 Symbolic Bauman, Zygmunt 114, 118, 184 club ownership 99–100, 103, 116, Bayern Munich 82 177, 188, 190

196 Index 197 commodification 6, 9 , 23, 87–8, 91, Fábregas, Cesc 74, 75, 78 97, 102, 104–18, 190–1, 193–4 Falange Española Tradicional y de las communitas 21, 25, 175 JONS 33, 36, 66, 90–1 competitive continuity 72 fans 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 17, 19–22, 30, Confederations Cup 15, 182 33–5, 39, 44–5, 49–53, 56, 57–9, Connell, Raewyn 124–5, 135, 186 60–3, 69, 71–6, 78, 83, 86, 87, 89, Constitution (of 1978) 42, 44, 71 95, 98–103, 104–5, 107–18, 120, consumption 8–9, 16–18, 41, 49, 125, 128–36, 138–41, 145, 147, 149, 50–1, 58–9, 62, 98, 104–18, 122, 150, 152, 154, 156–8, 160–2, 164–6, 139, 174–5, 177, 184, 194 169, 171–2, 177–80, 186, 188, 190, Contingency theory 87–8, 102 195 Corporate social responsibility 95 FC Barcelona 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 17, 24, 27, Costa, Diego 182 30, 39, 40, 42, 44–7, 49, 52–3, 55, Croatia 83 56–62, 70–1, 74–5, 80, 82, 84, 89, Cruyff, Johan 80, 82, 84, 180 93, 95–6, 101–2, 107, 109–11, 114, Czechoslovakia 30, 65 121, 142, 145, 150, 159–60, 164, 166, 172, 175–6, 180, 183–4, 190 Deloitte 8, 24, 45, 60, 96, 107, Barça 30, 40, 61, 109–10, 160, 184, 186 191, 192 democracy (re-establishment of) 4, Festinger, Leon 115, 187 27–8, 40–6, 47, 64, 68, 91, 110, 139, festive experience 6, 113, 118 175–6, 179, 185 First World War 31 Denmark 74, 78, 185 Florentino Pérez 81 Deportivo de la Coruña 44, 52–3, football as a total symbol 21 55–6 football culture 48–63 deterritorialization 117–18, 177 football enclaves 54, 56 Di Stefano, Alfredo 35, 38 football practice 11–14 dissonant experiences 113–17 footballization 47 Dunning, Eric 146, 186, 191, 194, France 19, 36, 37, 43, 69, 70, 74, 83, 195 96, 157, 163, 181 Durkheim, Emile 18–19, 25, 187 Franco Bahamonde, Francisco 3, 36–9, 42, 46–7, 64, 66, 68, 192–3 educational level and football 12–18 Francoism 39, 40, 42, 179 Franco’s El Mundo Deportivo 16 dictatorship 33–6, 45, 102, 176 El País 16, 46, 69, 70, 73, 85, 146, Franco period 5, 30, 37–8, 68, 161, 164, 175, 185, 194 88–90 Franco regime 35, 36, emblemization 63 39–41, 68, 72, 90–1, 179 English Premier League 74, 82, 194 Frente Atlético 141 Espanyol (RCD Espanyol) 30, 52–3, furia española (Spanish fury) 3, 5, 142–3, 150–1, 160, 166 31, 36–8, 41, 43, 45–6, 64–85, 176, Europe (European societies, European 179–80, 191–2 countries) 9–10, 19, 31–2, 34–5, Fusi, Juan Pablo 34, 185 41, 48, 51, 68, 70, 72, 80, 96, 100, 123, 136, 138, 151, 153, 162–3 Galicia 42, 110 European Commission 168 Gamper, Hans 30 European Council 146, 147, 166 García Candau, Julian 92, 187 European Cup 35, 38, 47, 68 Gaspart, Joan 145 European Union 51, 70, 101, 163, gender 4, 6, 11, 23, 119–21, 123–4, 166 129, 133–5, 177, 190–1 198 Index gender individualization 135 internationalization 58, 61, 72, 75, General Media Survey (Estudio 136 General de Medios, EGM) 10, 16, internet 14, 95, 109, 112–13, 174 187 Ireland 83 Germany 36, 73, 76, 78–9, 83, 96, Iríbar, Ángel 68 153, 163, 180 Italy 15, 36, 43, 71, 76, 78, 82–3, 96, Getafe CF 80, 164, 166 136, 137, 139, 140, 163, 180 Giddens, Anthony 117, 188 Gil-Calvo, Enrique 85, 119, 187, 188 Joaquín Sánchez 77 Giulianotti, Richard 51, 98, 104–6, Juan Carlos I 181 115, 117, 140, 186–8 globalization 3, 61, 87–8, 91, 102, King’s Cup (Copa del Rey) 15, 22, 28 104, 177, 193 Kubala, Ladislao 35 glocal dynamic 58, 61, 192 González ‘Michel’, Miguel 69 La Sexta 79 Great Britain 136, 139, 194 Laporta, Joan 61 Greece 76 Latvia 74 Gross National Product (GNP) 8, 94 Law 19/2007 against Violence, Guardiola, Pep 80, 82, 84, 180 Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport 155, 163, hermeneutic plasticity 21, 25 167–71 heterosexual 119, 125 leisure habits 8–18, 23, 25–6, 32, 47, homophobia 124 102, 105, 114, 175, 177 Huelva (city) 27 Les Corts 30, 40 Huelva Recreation Club (Recreativo de Liechtenstein 74 Huelva) 89 Lipovetsky, Gilles 112, 117, 190 Hugo Sánchez 69, 161 Lluch, Ernest 161 hyper-consumption 3, 6, 104–18 local community 117–18, 177

Iceland 74, 78 Madrid (city) 28, 29, 34, 37, 58, 155, identity 30, 44 class identity 136 164, 165, 166 club identity 61, 100, 101, 103 fan Maguregui, José María 79 identity 131 gender identity 121, Málaga CF 101, 159, 162, 166 124 masculine identity 119, 121, Malta 43, 69 125 national identity 31, 45, 68, management 78, 79, 81, 84, 87, 89, 72, 85, 179–80 personal identity 92, 93, 95, 97, 99, 103, 105, 107, 108, 154 playing identity 64, 69 114–18, 147, 169, 185, 187, 188, regional identity 68 Spanish 190, 191 identity 5, 158 Manchester United 95–6, 192 Iglesias, Julio César 69 Manolo Sanchís 69 Iker Casillas 74 Marca 16, 33, 37, 144 Ikurriña 39 Marchena, Carlos 74 immigration 40, 153, 157, 161, 163, marketing 3, 88, 95, 97, 103, 106–7, 166 177, 187–8, 191 individualization 117, 135 Martín Vázquez, Rafael 69 Induráin, Miguel 70 masculinity 31, 119–35, 137–8, industrialization 32 178, 185, 190–1 androcentric Iniesta, Andrés 74–5, 182–3 masculinity 124 complicit interest in football 10–18 masculinity 125 hegemonic Index 199

masculinity 3, 124, 125–35 Partido Socialista Obrero Español inductor masculinity 119–35 (PSOE) 167 marginalization masculinity 125 Patriarchal dividend 125, 135 subordinate masculinity 125 patriotic anorexia 72, 75–6, 83–4, mass media 3, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 27, 180, 194 36, 42, 45, 48, 62, 66, 69, 71, 75, peñas 120, 130–5, 138–41, 149–58, 77, 78, 83, 102, 104, 109, 111–12, 178, 189 117–18, 122, 133, 138, 145–7, 150, personalization 111, 113 153–4, 163–7, 177, 180, 182–3, 185, Piqué, Gerard 182 192 Piterman, Dmitri 101 merchandising 50–1, 59, 88, 100, Platini, Michel 43 107 Portugal 36, 74, 79, 83 Messi, Lionel 109 post-feminism 124 Mestalla 166 post-modern society 115 México 30, 69 Prats, Matías 37 Modernization 18, 32, 70, 152 Primo de Rivera, Miguel 30 Montalt, Agustí 40 Professional Football League (Liga de Morientes, Fernando 77 Fútbol Profesional, LFP) 10, 14, Movement against Intolerance 23, 93 (Movimiento contra la professionalization 9, 31–2, 87–8, Intolerancia) 171, 173 100, 102, 136 Muñoz Calero, Armando 37 Public Limited Sport Company (Sociedad Anónima Deportiva, National Commission Against SAD) 5, 51, 89, 93, 94, 98, 100, Violence in Sport Events 139, 151, 102, 103, 108, 177, 188, 191 169–70, 178 The Anti-Violence public space 34, 48–9, 62, 126, 175 Commission 145, 147–9 public sphere 9, 30, 48 National Sports Delegation Pujol, Carles 74 (Delegación Nacional de Puskas, Ferenc 35, 38 Deportes) 66, 90, 91, 159, 160 nationalization 47 Quinta del Buitre 68–9 neo-Nazi ideology 162, 171 new cathedrals 22 Racing de Santander 101, 121 Northern Ireland 74, 77–8, 140 radio 16, 35, 37, 43, 47, 113, 176 Norway 30 Ramos, Sergio 74 Núñez, José Luis 145 Raúl González 73, 77–80, 84 Rayo Vallecano 160 Observatory on Racism and Violence RC Mallorca 80, 161 in Sport 155, 167–8, 173, 179 Real Betis 52–5, 58–60, 160, 166 Olympic Games 1920 (Antwerp) 28, Real Madrid 1, 3, 8, 15, 24, 27–8, 30–1, 38, 46, 65, 83, 179 31, 33–5, 38–40, 42, 44–5, 47, 52–6, Olympic Games 1992 58–60, 62, 68–71, 74, 77, 79–82, 84, (Barcelona) 43, 70–1 93, 95–6, 101–2, 107, 109–10, 114, Olympic Games 2000 (Sydney) 71, 120, 142, 160–1, 166, 176 74 Real Sociedad de San Sebastián 39, Osasuna (CA Osasuna) 52–3, 93, 166 42, 44, 52–3, 161 Real Zaragoza 44, 52–3, 80, 121, Pardeza, Miguel 69 164, 166 Partido Popular (PP) 167 regional loyalties 108–11 200 Index

Reina, José Manuel 74 Sport Law of 1990 51, 93–4, 98–101, Relaño, Alfredo 160, 192 148 responsibility effect 73–5, 83–4, 180 sport-media-complex 88, 96 Riazor Blues 150 structural configuration 4, 5, 86–8, ritual 4, 18–26, 48, 50, 58, 63, 100, 96, 102 175, 184–6, 189 structural differentiation 5, 18, 86–9, Robertson, Roland 61, 192 94, 96–7, 102–3, 184 Rodríguez Zapatero, José Luis 46 Superior Sports Council (Consejo Roland Garros 70 Superior de Deportes, CSD) 41, 87, Ronaldo, Cristiano 109 90, 92–94, 122, 165, 168, 170 RTVE (Radio Televisión Española) 43 survey 10–11, 14–15, 17, 20–1, 23, Russia 76, 78 25–6, 51, 57, 73, 75, 122–3, 174 Sweden 65, 74, 76, 77, 78 Salgado, Michel 77 Switzerland 81 Samaranch, Juan Antonio 160 symbolism 28, 30 identitary Samuel Eto’o 155, 164, 166, 172 symbolism 61 national symbolism Second Republic 31, 33, 110 46, 176 political symbolism 38 Second World War 35–6, 66–7 regional symbolism 103, 110, 117 Segurola, Santiago 164, 184, 185, territorial symbolism 29, 111 193 self-fulfilling prophecy 75 team identification 48–56, 59–61 Senna, Marcos 74 television 13–16, 20–1, 24, 34–8, Senyera 30, 39, 40 41–50, 58–9, 76, 79, 87, 96, 105, Sevilla FC 44, 52–3, 159 107, 112–14, 125, 169, 175–6, 193 sex and football 12–18 tickets 14–15, 20, 33, 106–7, 120, Silva, David 74, 75, 182 133, 139–40, 147–8, 152, 169 size of habitat and football 12–18 Season-ticket holders 99, 109 skinheads 139, 142–4, 152, 178, 184 tifosi 136 sociability 5, 9, 25, 88–9, 102–4, tiki-taka 79–80, 82–4, 180–2 135, 177, 193 Torres, Fernando 74, 75 social efficacy 21, 63 Tour de France 70 socialization 21, 54, 63, 108–9, 111, transnationalization 88, 94 117, 121–2, 124, 141 Turkey 81 Socio/a (member) 99, 103, 120–1, 190 socioeconomic condition and UEFA Euro league 71 football 12–8 UEFA European Championship Sociological Research Centre (Centro 1960 37 de Investigaciones Sociológicas, UEFA European Championship CIS) 10, 12–13, 51, 73, 75 1964 37–8, 47, 67, 70 Solís, José 38–9 UEFA European Championship SOS Racism 165, 171, 173 1968 70 Soviet Union (USSR) 30, 37–8 UEFA European Championship Spanish Football Federation 28, 1972 70 32–3, 37, 39, 41, 66, 78, 81, 86, 90, UEFA European Championship 164–5, 170 1976 70 Spanish national team 1–3, 5, 24, UEFA European Championship 28, 30–1, 35–8, 40–1, 43–7, 57, 1980 70 64–85, 136, 140, 155, 163–4, 176, UEFA European Championship 179–83 1984 43, 69, 70 Index 201

UEFA European Championship Wert, José Ignacio 44, 72, 194 1988 70 Wieviorka, Michel 153, 157, 195 UEFA European Championship Williams, John 100, 105, 115, 1992 70 131, 136, 140, 146, 158, 186, 191, UEFA European Championship 195 1996 70 Women’s peñas 132, 135, 189 UEFA European Championship World Cup 1934 70 2000 70 World Cup 1950 35, 37, 47, 67 UEFA European Championship World Cup 1954 38, 70 2004 70, 74 World Cup 1958 38, 70 UEFA European Championship World Cup 1962 38, 67, 68, 70 2008 5, 15, 64–5, 70, 73–80, 83, World Cup 1966 38, 67, 70 180, 182 World Cup 1970 38, 70 UEFA European Championship World Cup 1974 38, 68, 70 2012 5, 45, 64, 81–4, 180, 182 World Cup 1978 68, 70 Ultras Sur 141–2, 145, 162, 171 World Cup 1982 1, 42, 43, 68, United Kingdom 28 92, 138, 139–40, 142, 146, United Nations 67 151, 178 United States 101, 121 World Cup 1986 43, 69, 70, 146 unsustainability 6, 116, 118, 177 World Cup 1990 70, 146 World Cup 1994 43, 70 Valdano, Jorge 161 World Cup 1998 43, 70 Valencia (community) 42, 110, 127, World Cup 2002 70 160, 162, 166 World Cup 2006 70, 73, 74, 79, Valencia CF 44, 52–6, 58–61, 74–5, 114 107, 160–1, 166, 172 World Cup 2010 5, 45, 64–5, 67, Vázquez-Montalbán, Manuel 25, 40, 81–3, 84, 180 194 World Cup 2014 181–3 Verdú, Vicente 1, 121, 194 Villa, David 74, 75, 78 Xavi Hernández 74, 75 Villalonga, José 67 Villarreal CF 74, 80 Zarra, Telmo 37, 167