Eracle. Journal of Sport and Social Sciences

A Game of State? Sport and International Politics

Valentina Fedele — 2023-12-29

The aim of this special issue is to address some of the most salient questions currently at the junction between international sport and politics.

Sport e guerra in Ucraina: l’impatto della crisi sulla performance nel calcio

Francesca Romana Lenzi — 2023-12-29

The long period of crisis that has affected the world since the development of the Covid-19 pandemic has generated further consequences with the war in Ukraine. Scenarios that exposed elite athletes to situations of anxiety and stress, elements considered to alter or modify their performance (Lundqvist & Raglin, 2015). The aim of this work is to analyse the performance of Ukrainian footballers in European professional leagues after the beginning of the war. The research concerns the comparison of their performance with the previous season and with other leagues in order to highlight changes and differences compared to the past and other European leagues.

A war of words. The representation of the war in Ukraine in the sports media of Latvia

Anastasija Ropa — 2023-12-29

Latvia is an ex-Soviet country with Latvian and ethnically Russian population and a history of uneasy relationship with Russia, including the love and hate relationship with Russian sports. Many athletes and trainers working in Latvia have competed and were trained in Russia, using Russian facilities, or, for the older generation, the Soviet Union. However, Russia and Russian-speaking Latvian residents, including the citizens of Latvia, have been long viewed with suspicion and have been the subject of discrimination at times of crisis. This paper examines the representation of the war in Ukraine in the sporting media of Latvia from February to early October 2022. The material is sourced from the main news portal of Latvia, Delfi, which has a Latvian-language and a Russian-language versions. It is found that the two versions have significant differences in the way they refer to the war in sport-related news items.

Embodying the nation and the political contention: naturalised athletes changing (sportive) nationalism at the Beijing 2022 Olympics

Veronica Strina — 2023-12-29

During the 2022 Winter Games, China has lined its team up with an unprecedented number of athletes born and raised abroad. The two American-born sportswomen of Chinese descent, Gu Ailing and Zhu Yi, have been in the news spotlight for renouncing their US citizenship to compete under the Chinese flag, thus being caught in the middle of the Sino-US tensions. The article has a twofold purpose: on the one hand, it explores to what extent the US-China rivalry makes athletes pawns in the hands of states that struggle for supremacy; on the other hand, it seeks to show how the emergence of the phenomenon of athletes’ naturalisation may contribute to the creation of a “multicultural nationalism” while leading to a surge of “negative” sportive nationalism, which assumes that the national interest comes at another nation’s expense. The naturalisation of talents is no longer uncommon. Still, the way in which it is increasingly used in the context of the Games to feed the rivalry between states and shape the meaning of national identity is under-explored and therefore worth investigating.

Il futuro del calcio in Cina. Tra esperimenti sociali, scandali e fallimenti

Giovannipaolo Ferrari — 2023-12-29

Since the end of the 1970s, when it was already preparing for the ‘great opening’, China has sought to legitimize itself before the international community through various strategies, including seeking international recognition in sport and attempting to rapidly extend its influence over transnational sporting institutions by using and combining soft power, national status and the internal development of Olympic disciplines and, in particular, football. Already Deng Xiaoping, a passionate lover of the ‘beautiful game’, after the Cultural Revolution had rehabilitated football and tried to rebuild a Chinese football movement. But it was with the election of Xi Jinping as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012 that a real strategy was launched to develop Chinese football through structural reforms. Investment, participation and media consumption in football have increased since the implementation of this reform plan and the revitalization of football has become a key strategic objective for China. The continuing failures of the men’s senior national team, scandals – however – and, in recent times, the Covid-19 pandemic with the subsequent downturn in the Asian giant’s economic growth, have brought the contradictions of Chinese football to the surface. Our contribution will attempt to highlight the entanglements that link football to the complex and varied Chinese power system.

Hungarian-Slovak relations through the eyes of football stadiums

Pavol Struhár — 2023-12-29

Slovak-Hungarian relations have long been burdened by a different view of the common past. While Hungary and Slovakia cooperate as good and reliable partners in international relations and despite friendly relations between their governments, deep-seated tensions between the two nations is regularly displayed when it comes to football matches. The goal of the article is to map the political expressions of relevant actors at mutual football matches. It analyzes in more detail the behavior and political or ideological expressions of national football associations, clubs, players or fans during two international matches between Slovan Bratislava and Ferencvárosi TC (Budapest) in 2022. The conclusions show that the matches were seen by some spectators as an expression of rivalry between Hungarians and Slovaks. Despite the efforts of UEFA, national football federations or the clubs themselves, the spectators presented political attitudes that bore the signs of aggressive nationalism or chauvinism.

La questione curda vista dagli spalti: proteste e repressione oltre i confini

Gabriele Leone — 2023-12-29

In this article, we aim to analyze the relationship between the condition of the Kurdish population and the world of Kurdish protest starting from organized football fans' stands, highlighting the territorial connections that go beyond the football dimension and (imposed) borders. In fact, it happens that the stadium stands represent a social space of dissent against the dominant political arrangements (Fedele, 2021; Bifulco and Pirone, 2014) and that in the repression of the Amedspor fans, the metaphor of forced inclusion is realized. To analyze what happens, we consider Kurdistan as an 'international colony' (Beşikçi, 1991), as a nation divided between four different states. For the purpose of conducting our analysis, we will use the "border as a method" (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013), as, since the border is a legal product that marks an act of power (Spíndola Zago, 2016), it allows us to investigate the power that establishes a hegemony over space.

La neutralité du football mondial à l’épreuve des mobilisations LGBTQR+ : une question géopolitique. Le cas de la coupe du monde Qatar 2022

Yvan ISSEKIN — 2023-12-29

This article delves into a sociological analysis of the book “La valeur du footballer” of Manuel Schottè, examining the attributed value of football players and the prevalent trend in the soccer world to emphasize individuality over the collective. The author explores interpretations by considering the valorization as a historical product rooted in structural dynamics and context-specific practices. The article further explores football as a space for constructing a status of prominence, the valorization of a minority of players as a symbolic frontier, concentration and circularity of profits, and the individualization of performance and player valorization. Ultimately, the work provides a comprehensive perspective connecting history, social structure, and contemporary dynamics to comprehend the value within football.

Il “valore” del campione: uno sguardo sociologico sulla figura del calciatore contemporaneo- Schottè, M. (2021). La valeur du footballer, Paris: CNRS Editions

Giovannipaolo Ferrari — 2023-12-29

Fenomenologia di una passione-Nardini, D. (2022) Surfers Paradise. Un’etnografia del surf sulla Gold Coast australiana. Milano: Ledizioni

Lorenzo Pedrini — 2023-12-29

Surfers Paradise presents the findings of an anthropological inquiry into surfing culture. Through participant observation and interviews, Dario Nardini focuses on the collective fascination with surfing in the Australian Gold Coast, dissecting its historical, relational, symbolic, institutional, and sensorial dimensions, as well as its influence on national identity. This paper discusses Nardini’s ethnography as a brilliant “phenomenology of a passion” example. Integrating consolidated debates in social sciences, such as embodiment, the sociology of consumption, the anthropological study of people’s heritage, the anthropology of leisure and games, and the lifestyle studies, the book outlines the complex meaning of surfing in Australia. Above everything, the ethnographic approach provides a powerful lens to investigate sports and physical cultural practices, by examining the body-environment-society interconnections.