Soccer & Society Vol. 9, No.

1, January 2008, 5663

Identity, nation-state and football in Spain. The evolution of nationalist feelings in Spanish football
Ramn Llopis Goig*
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Valencia
ramon.llopis@uv.es Ramn Francis 0 1 9000002007 2007 OriginalLlopisGoig 1466-0970 Francis Soccer &Article Ltd 10.1080/14660970701616738 FSAS_A_261524.sgm Taylor and (print)/1743-9590 (online) Society

This essay shows the importance of the identity component in the development of Spanish football from its birth at the beginning of the twentieth century, when football was organized at a regional level, until the present time when football reflects the democratic and postnational Spain created after the arrival of democracy in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The essay expounds the existence of four periods in the development of the nationalistic feelings with which Spanish football has been embodied: the pre-national or regional period, the period of Spanish nationalization, the period of strengthening of peripheral nationalisms and the post-national period. In order to explain each of these periods, the role and symbolic representation of the Spanish National Team, Real Madrid, Barcelona FC, Athletic de Bilbao, among others, will be examined.

Introduction According to recent research by Gallup, in Spain, half the population over 15 years of age claim to be football fans.1 During the 200405 season, the most followed matches had between five million and eight and a half million spectators and weekly attendance at matches in the Premier Division was always above two hundred thousand people.2 The relevance of football can also be seen in its economic dimension. In 2003 it generated 4,000 million , which is almost 0.9 per cent of the GDP (and 1.2 per cent of the GDP of the Service Sector). If we add other indirect effects, such as wages of employees and the gross operating profit, the aggregated figure corresponding to the total impact on the Spanish economy went up to 8,066 million , approximately 1.7 per cent of the GDP and 2.5 per cent of the GDP of the Service Sector.3 One of the areas where sociological research on football can be most fruitful, given the plurinational nature of Spain, is that concerned with the identity dimension. This aspect has been studied, from a general perspective, in various papers by Garca Ferrando.4 On the other hand, several studies have been carried out focusing on the links between football and nationalism in Galician clubs,5 Athltic de Bilbao,6 and Barcelona FC.7 Some other studies based on the nationalistic aspects of Spanish football have been carried out by British authors who have examined their historical dimensions,8 their role in mass media9 or some characteristics of Basque clubs.10 This study shows the historical process of development and consolidation of football as a mass phenomenon throughout the twentieth century, taking into account the identity and national components with which its socialization has happened. Throughout this essay we propound the existence of four phases whose basic characteristics are the following: 1. Pre-national or regional period: During the first third of the twentieth 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
*Email: ramon.llopis@uv.es
ISSN 1466-0970 print/ISSN 1743-9590 online 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14660970701616738 http://www.informaworld.com

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teams and their main clubs, Athltic Club de Bilbao and FC Barcelona, became symbols of nationalist politics. 2. Period of Spanish Nationalization: In the Francoist period, Spanish football started a process of nationalization, which was made evident with the fostering of the image of the Spanish national team and the adoption by Real Madrid of a centralist image due to its role as the regimes ambassador. 3. Period of strengthening of peripheral nationalisms: In the 1960s and 1970s, Basque and Catalan nationalisms found in football a melting-pot for their aspirations and this went on with the arrival of democracy, when the nationalist discourse present before the matches of the Spanish national team diminished, and football started a new period when peripheral nationalisms came forward. 4. Post-national period: The increasing relevance of peripheral nationalisms played an important role until the first half of the 1990s, when Spanish football went through different reforms such as turning clubs into Private Sport Societies11 or the effects produced by the Bosman law, such as the free circulation of footballers in the EU, in a context of globalization of the mass media and the development of the information society. Pre-national football Football was brought in to Spain at the end of the nineteenth century as an effect of the British economic expansion. There are records of it being played in 1872 and its introduction is attributed to British workers of mining companies in Huelva. In the last decade of the nineteenth century football started to be played in Bilbao and San Sebastin. In this context, big clubs, which continue to exist, were founded with a shared effort from the Spanish and foreigners: Athltic de Bilbao in 1898, FC Barcelona in 1899, Real Madrid in 1902 and Athletico de Madrid in 1903. These were the first stages of a sport whose organizational and competitive context, in little more than a quarter of a century, would be shaped by the nation-states, especially 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). Until that moment, football had been played at regional levels, which sometimes overlapped each other but had never achieved a unitarian structure. In 1903 the First Spanish Championship was played, fostered by Madrid manager Padrs who tried to organize the Tournament as an annual competition, which would bring together in Madrid the different regional champions. He managed to get the support of King Alfonso XIII who donated a trophy, giving birth to the Kings Cup. The impact of professionalization The professionalization of Spanish football was a slow process and centred around two dates: 1912, when it became a paid event, as the old ODonnell 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 model, which was reviewed in 1930, would keep its spirit in force until the 1960s. The same evolution happened in other European countries, after the acceptance of professionalism by FIFA at the Rome Congress. This professionalization process could only exist under certain conditions, such as, for example, an increasing number of spectators and members of clubs. Football, therefore, became yet another element in the process of modernization of the country. Industrialization and the division of labour generated new needs, among them those which were concerned with entertainment. Football, along with other alternatives, met this increasing

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demand for leisure activities. Football developed in industrial and coastal regions,12 thus the thesis that football is a typical sport of urban industrial areas proves right. This phenomenon has been called determinism of origins, that is to say, football came to Spain through seaports and put down roots in open-minded cities, used to the exchange of ideas and acceptance of novelties.13 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 accelerated even more reform at regional level, where competitions had until then taken place, as it produced an increase in expenses which could only be offset by changing from a regional to national competition. The creation of a national competitive context 1927 and 1928 were very relevant years for the future of Spanish football, as organizational structures and the regulations for the national competitions were established and have remained almost the same 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 the public: football was modernizing and becoming part of the popular culture. Before then, and for about a year, two leagues had been played at the same time, but they finally saw the need of reaching an agreement as none of the leagues were having the economic results that they had initially envisaged. During the first few seasons, clubs had to face new expenses and needs derived 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. There were many clubs distrustful of the feasibility of the League Championship and demanded its re-organization into regional championships. The Catalan Federation was in favour of their preservation and a greater degree of autonomy for regional championships, which in the case of Catalonia was largely followed by fans. On the other side, Real Madrid was one of the most passionate defenders of a National League, partly because of 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 was streamlined although regional championships were still being held in Catalonia, the Basque Country and some other regions in Spain despite the opposition of Real Madrid. Background of peripheral nationalists Before the Civil War, Basque clubs, especially Athltic de Bilbao, dominated Spanish football. Its English playing style, direct and with a strong physical component, was admired throughout the country and, in fact, became the origin of the furia espaola (Spanish fieriness) stereotype, a myth originated when the National team won the Silver Medal in the Olympic Games held in Antwerp in 1920.14 In fact, the national team obtained very poor results at an international level. Moreover, as has already been mentioned, before the period of Francos dictatorship, football was identified and organized on a regional level. The image of Athltic de Bilbao, which from its origins was based on the idea of a club which represented the city and its surrounding area, was strengthened by the decision of the managing board in 1919 to hire only Basque players.15 Athltic de Bilbao, along with Basque clubs, backed the Basque autonomy and with the outbreak of the Civil War 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

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and Norway. After that, when the Basque country had been invaded by the nacionales,16 the team moved to Mexico where it played in the National League before dissolving.17 In Catalonia, in spite of having been founded by a Swiss man, FC Barcelona soon became a symbol of catalanism, in contrast with the RCD Espanyol, which was regarded by most Bara supporters as a centralist team. With these identity characteristics, it is not surprising that matches between both teams have been real local encounters since the beginning of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, the greatest clashes were produced by the centralism of some decisions. An example of this happened in June 1925 when, after some whistling and booing of fans following the Spanish national anthem, the military governor closed the stadium Les Corts18 for six months. As in the case of Athltic de Bilbao, many players of FC Barcelona joined the fight against the insurgent military in 1936 and in April 1937 the club went on tour around Mexico. The nationalization of football in Spain in the 1940s and 1950s Football dominated Spanish sport during the Franco period. Towards the end of the Civil War, in the last months of 1938, a weekly sports newspaper called Marca was first published. Through it the ideological and organizational principles, which were going to rule over Spanish society as a whole and particularly over football, were clearly set out. As Bahamonde has pointed out, the journalist Miquelarena continually indicated 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. He argued that almost everyone had behaved in a separatist and rude way during matches for the Spanish championship. Regional nationalism was present both in the tiers of San Mams stadium and of Chamartn. In most cases, a Madrid supporter would be as well a regional nationalist, that is to say, a mentally retarded parochial when confronted to national limits.19 After the end of the Civil War, sport became part of the States machinery. Sport was subordinated to the State and was impregnated with fascist terminology. The ideas, which were going to give meaning to sport, were obedience, submission and military discipline. The National Board for Sport depended on the official party, Falange Espaola 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 Francos dictatorship, could clubs start to reassert their influence.20 When compared to other aspects of Spanish life, football soon recovered both financially and its supporters to the level before the Civil War. In only two seasons they reached the level of membership and spectators of the republican period. Football then became a psychological outlet, a way to compensate for a difficult life. Nonetheless, it must be said that football, as entertainment for the masses, was not a creation of Francoism. In other European countries, after the Second World War, there was also a boom of football which had a soothing effect on collective wounds. Therefore, the return of football as a show was not favoured by Francos regime, which only realized its political usefulness at the end of the 1940s.21 During this period, Real Madrid began to have strong political connotations to the extent that it became considered the team of the regime. Nonetheless, some authors have seen it as a victim of Francoism itself.22 It is, in fact, true that at the centre of the debate about the relationship of Real Madrid with Francos regime was its president during almost the entire period of Francos dictatorship: Santiago Bernabu who managed the team since 1943 until his death in 1978. It is true that Bernabu was a francoist, but it is also true that he had no need to imitate Francos methods. On the other side, and although it cannot be proved to be true, it is likely that most of

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the clubs fans were francoists. It can actually be said that Real Madrid was the team supported by Franco himself and most of his ministers and that was something that made Bernabu feel proud, as well as the idea that the club was the regimes ambassador.23 Nonetheless, the club did not dominate the Royal Spanish Football Federation and was not favoured by referees. Regarding the Spanish national team, it is important to point out that francoist authorities tried to embed its play with fascist values. The myth of the furia espaola, which had originated in Athletic de Bilbaos playing style, was generalised and put to use to define the characteristics of Spanish teams. The furia espaola, as a representation of Spanish values of virility, impetuosity and fieriness,24 had its most emblematic spokesman in Matas Prats, commentator on the Spanish National Radio.25 Mass media adopted a patriotic discourse, which aimed at promoting the Spanish National team. The National team had to change their red shirts for blue ones and the players were asked to line up to salute the fascist way and sing fascist songs. The strengthening of peripheral nationalisms After two decades of institutional convergence with the political regime, football achieved some degree of autonomy.26 The process of detachment of football from the ideas of the Spanish fascist party, Falange, had already started at the end of the Second World War, and its symbology was then gradually abandoned.27 The Spanish national team had yielded very little to Francos regime in terms of international prestige. As a matter of fact, it did not qualify for the World Cups of 1954, 1958, 1970 or 1974 and did not manage a good run in the 1962 and 1966 Cups. The image of the Spanish national team was blurred by the prevalence and success of Real Madrid in European Football from 1956. This unexpectedly became the best bet for the regimes international image. The 1960s and 1970s was the period when football acted as a catalyst for the nationalistic desires of Basques and Catalans. The antagonism towards the centralist and repressive regime found, in football, a way to express and diffuse identities. Manuel Vzquez Montalbn, a famous Spanish writer, argued that the regime accepted this, seeing football as a useful tool to soothe regional tensions. FC Barcelona, mostly made up of local footballers until the 1960s, started to employ foreign players from that moment as a way to assert its rivalry with Real Madrid. Although that hiring policy did not produce results until the mid-1980s, FC Barcelona became the national team of Catalonia, being 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 that particular meaning. Matches with Bara in the old Les Corts stadium became a powerful nationalist performance, which was an orderly way for thousands of Catalans to wave their senyeres (Catalan flags), sing songs such as Els Segadors and speak in their scorned mother language. Athltic de Bilbao also had an enormous political relevance because of the decision taken by the club in 1919 to hire only Basque players trained in their own training grounds. It had dominated Spanish football during the first decade of the century, in the years previous to the Civil War and in the 1940s. Its political identity was made evident when in 1937 it supported the campaign in favour of Basque autonomy and encouraged its players to join the Euzkadi national team. De-nationalization and post-national football With the arrival of democracy, the organizational structures of football, which had been designed by Francos regime, went through a deep transformation. Football federations started a process of democratization and clubs gave back their members the right to elect their presidents. The

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National Board of Sport, which had influenced the organization of sport, was abolished. The patriotic discourse, which had been characteristic of the Spanish national team in the previous period, gradually vanished. La furia espaola became an old-fashioned term and the poor results in the World Cups of 1978 and 1982 contributed to this. During the second half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, Spanish football experienced an increasing number of peripheral nationalist expressions. These not only had the Basque Country and Catalonia as their main actors but the phenomenon expanded to other communities such as la Galician, Andalusia and the Valencian Community. Managers, players and supporters backed the autonomy of their regions. During the 1980s and 1990s, a plurinational Spain was present in the relations between football and society. The leading role which Real Madrid had previously had (as a symbol of centralism) and FC Barcelona (as a symbol of catalanism and opposing centralism), gave way to a more plural and complex scenario. Valencia CF, Deportivo de La Corua, Athltic de Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Atltico de Madrid, Real Zaragoza and Sevilla FC, were beginning to be taken into account in the main Spanish championships and European competitions.28 In the 1990s, the identity map of Spanish football witnessed the dismantling of its radial structure: the identity-based hegemony of the Spanish national team and Real Madrid were transformed into the site where new identities are built. In the case of Catalans and Basques some precedents had been set, but in other Autonomous Communities the process began at that particular moment. This has 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 Autonomic State.29 Nowadays, new identities have been activated damaging the old radial structure of Spanish football. With the creation of the Autonomic State autonomic feelings have been increasing and football clubs have been adopting a nationalist profile. This was influenced by the centrifugal logic, which characterized the creation of the Autonomic State. In turn, this has added complexity to the football map, but it cannot be said that the situation has done away with unitary feelings. The matches of the Spanish national team do not raise much interest between the players and football fans, but promote the search for a common identity in the game and produce a modern version of the furia espaola stereotype. Therefore, other identities have been added to the hegemony of the Spanish national team and the centralist role of Real Madrid, which have weakened the previous model without destroying it completely. Concluding comments Football in Spain still has a nationalist component, which it had throughout the twentieth century. That was the case during the first third of the twentieth century thanks to the nationalist symbolism, which was soon adopted by clubs such as Athltic de Bilbao and FC Barcelona and the creation of the first national teams in the Basque Country and Catalonia. During the Francoist period football went through unification into a Nation-State model, which was made evident with the fostering of the public image of the Spanish national team and the centralist role of Real Madrid as ambassador of the regime. In the 1960s and 1970s Basque and Catalan nationalisms found in football a catalyst for their dreams, which continued with the arrival of democracy. That was when the patriotic vocabulary, which accompanied the play of 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 plurinational Spain was emerging in the stadiums and was going to transform the football scenario into a more plural and complex space. This pluralism and complexity will come together with the changes brought about by the globalization process, which in its global dialectics implies an alteration and readjustment

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of football identities. Globalization thus embodies a challenge to the construction of a NationState identity, which has affected Spanish football. States have lost their capacity to shape a common identity and the cultural sphere has become more plural. Notes
1. www.gallup.es 2. Data extracted from the Memoir published by the Professional Football League for the 200405 season. 3. Conclusions of a report published by the Professional Football League, The Impact of Professional Football on the Spanish Economy (www.lfp.es). According to this report, Professional Football employs directly and indirectly nearly 66,000 people. 4. Garca Ferrando, Mundializacin y deporte profesional; Garca Ferrando, Mundializacin y deporte. Paradojas de la glocalizacin; Garca Ferrando and Hargreaves, Public Opinion, National Integration and Identity in Spain; Garca Ferrando and Durn, El deporte meditico y la mercantilizacin del deporte. 5. Gonzlez Ramallal, La cancha de las identidades, periodismo deportivo y ftbol gallego. 6. Unzueta, Ftbol y nacionalismo vasco; Daz Noci, Los nacionalistas van al ftbol. Deporte, ideologa y periodismo en los aos 20 y 30. 7. Colom, Conflictos e identidades en Catalua. 8. Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo; Duke and Crolley, Football, Nationality and the State. 9. Crolley and Hand, Football, Europe and the Press. 10. MacClancy, Nationalism at Play; MacAlevey, Football and Local Identity; Walton, Football and the Basques. 11. According to the Sports Law of 1990, whose article 19.1 establishes that Clubs will become Private Sport Societies with the specifications established by the law itself and its implementing rules and shall remain subject to the general regulations of company laws. 12. In 1926 there were 705 teams in Spain organized under 15 regional federations with 14,100 players under the federations rules. Of these 57 per cent belonged to Catalonia, Basque Country and Asturias (Bahamonde, El Real Madrid en la Historia de Espaa, 80). 13. Ibid. 14. Martialay, Amberes; Daz Noci, Los nacionalistas van al ftbol. 15. Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo, 21. 16. Rebel military. 17. Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo, 22. 18. Collected in Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo, 23. 19. Bahamonde, El Real Madrid en la Historia de Espaa, 185. 20. Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo, 38. 21. Bahamonde, El Real Madrid en la Historia de Espaa, 196. 22. Santander, A bote pronto. El ftbol y sus historias, 93. 23. Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo, 60. 24. Daz Noci, Los nacionalistas van al ftbol, 200. 25. Santander, A bote pronto. El ftbol y sus historias, 69. 26. Bahamonde, El Real Madrid en la Historia de Espaa, 186. 27. Shaw, Ftbol y franquismo, 84. 28. Gonzlez Ramallal, La cancha de las identidades, periodismo deportivo y ftbol gallego, 263. 29. Moreno, La federalizacin de Espaa. Poder poltico y territorio.

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