When England defeated the Netherlands in the semi-finals of this year's European Football Championship, British television commentators hailed the result as a "historic" victory that would "change our lives." Sports commentators are known for their penchant for hyperbole, it's in their job description, but posts like this sounded genuinely funny. Smaller countries such as the Netherlands often see competitions like this as rare opportunities to shine on the international stage, but does the UK really need that kind of validation? Looks like it is.
Writer Artur Kestler, born in Hungary, once made a distinction between ordinary and football nationalism. The latter is stronger according to him. Despite considering himself a proud naturalized Briton, Kestler remained a devoted fan of the Hungarian national football team for the rest of his life.
A patriotic charge
Football nationalism is full of patriotic charge, tribal and often aggressive. In close-ups during television broadcasts in the stands, grimacing men with crooked teeth are often seen hitting their bare chests and making deafening noises, reminding us again and again that the human race and apes share common ancestors.
Tribal sentiments are often fueled by collective animosities. During matches with Germany, some English fans still chant Ten German Bombers while spreading their arms in imitation of Royal Air Force (RAF) planes. When the Netherlands defeated then-West Germany in the semi-finals of the 1988 European Championship, fittingly enough, in a match played in Hamburg to eventually win the title, the celebration on the streets of Amsterdam surpassed even that of May 1945, when the Nazi occupation of the country ended . Perhaps it was the event that helped to finally put an end to a historical intolerance: anti-German sentiment ceased to exist in the Netherlands soon after.
When the Czechoslovakian ice hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in the 1969 World Cup, just a year after Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, the victory was marked by great celebrations that turned into mass protests against the occupation. One American diplomat said that "he had never seen the Czechs so happy before. It was clear that the city had not experienced such joy since the Nazis were defeated in 1945".
To those among us taught to regard nationalistic fervor as inappropriate, the feelings fueled by patriotic fervor might seem something to be ashamed of. And yet, the power of that rapture cannot be denied. As a Dutchman, in 1988 I too joined the celebrations for the victory over West Germany.
But can sports nationalism really be seen as something positive, since it can twist into violence? In the 19th century, the question led to a heated debate between Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, and far-right ideologue Charles Moras, the leader of the anti-Semitic French Action. De Coubertin believed that international sports competitions would strengthen global unity and mutual understanding among nations. In contrast, Moras felt that such events inflamed national animosities, which he, as a nationalist, welcomed.
Moras was right to question de Coubertin's romantic vision of universal brotherhood, but his racist views paved the way for the horrors of World War II. But this does not mean that sports nationalism is inherently bad. It can also be seen as an expression of shared feelings that requires to be expressed in a theatrical or ceremonial way.
Racial and religious animosities
Tribalism, in sports and elsewhere, can be an expression of religious, ideological, ethnic, regional or national affinities. This is most obvious in team sports like soccer. The long-standing rivalry between the Scottish football teams Celtic and Glasgow Rangers is rooted in their Catholic and Protestant roots. Liverpool and Manchester fans hate London clubs. Ajax from Amsterdam and Tottenham from London are associated with Jews by their rivals (both Amsterdam and London once had significant populations of Jewish origin), which can then prompt some extremely vicious chants.
But such associations no longer have a basis in reality. Today's football clubs are global companies that recruit players from all over the world. Proportionately few local footballers actually play in the leading island clubs, and the same is true for the big clubs in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
It turns out, in fact, that De Coubertin was right about the athletes, but wrong about the fans. Today's professional athletes belong to a highly paid cosmopolitan elite, free from national, racial or religious animosities, whose members, even after fierce duels at the representative level, still treat each other as close colleagues and friends. But that friendship has, one would say, little influence on the fans, many of whom still treat clubs like Tottenham, Ajax or Bayern, in which the majority of players are from abroad, as local.
This shows that when talking about sports nationalism, it is less about the traditional understanding of blood and soil, as Moras believed, and more about something more abstract: the desire for community, for a collective experience gained through shared emotions and the worship of sports heroes. In short, about something that places of religious gatherings have always provided. The worship of deities requires an object towards which this worship will be directed, but even this can be abstracted - which is the reason why some religions forbid the depiction of the human figure.
Sports nationalism, therefore, functions as a kind of secular religion - which can explain the hyperbole of television commentators and the almost religious fervor of fans. Tribal rituals, both those at religious festivals and those in stadiums, can sometimes get out of control and escalate into violence. But on the whole, ritualized tribalism allows people to indulge emotions that would otherwise be dangerous. We can only imagine a world in which Palestinian and Israeli fans paint their faces, wave flags and scream as the battle unfolds in a football stadium.
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