For many years I has some involvement in a research centre concerned with the study of globalisation. It was quite a challenging experience. We didn’t really get to first base in terms of an acceptable definition.
We also had difficulty in developing a line on globalisation. There are really four positions on globalisation:
For many years I has some involvement in a research centre concerned with the study of globalisation. It was quite a challenging experience. We didn’t really get to first base in terms of an acceptable definition.
We also had difficulty in developing a line on globalisation. There are really four positions on globalisation:
| Globalisation | That’s good | That’s bad |
| It is happening | Tony Blair | Far left, far right |
| It’s not happening | Some academics | Not many in this cell |
In the top right-hand cell, the far left are against because they see it as another stage of late capitalism. Some on the far right, i.e., populist nationalists, see it as a threat to the nation-state. Those in the top left box would say that the nation-state as created in the 17th century is on the way out.
There is some literature on globalisation and football. For example, I contributed the discussion of it in our 2011 co-edited book The Transformation of European Football. Cultural globalisation is often held back by national differences in preferences/tastes, although clearly food has become much more internationalised. Football has clearly benefitted from cultural globalisation, even making headway in the United States.
Football is also seen as a way of projecting soft power when your military resources are limited and your natural resources will eventually run out. That is why Qatar has invested so heavily in the game. Russian oligarchs see it as a form of political insurance. Hence, people in this position are not worried how much they lose.
Football is also increasingly bound up in the entertainment and celebrity industry. The Beckhams are the outstanding example of this. Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse has argued that as entertainment companies football clubs need to spend big because all the hype is necessary to stand out from the crowd. (She developed a case study with Sir Alex Ferguson on his management style). Globalised audiences have more distractions than ever, not least on their smart phones. The attention span of a ‘Generation Z’ teenager has been estimated at eight seconds. At the very top, you almost spend for the sake of spending: value doesn’t come into it.
Traditionally, watching your football team was seen as a form of suffering, the pain assuaged by heavy drinking on a Saturday night. Alan Sillitoe’s novels and short stories capture this well in relation to Notts County. Even today, football is a way of releasing the frustrations of the working week by blaming the referee or a scapegoat player.
Fans travel increasingly long distances to watch their teams. Charlton Athletic are a two-and-a-half journey away for me. Of course, I can take a ten minute trip to my local non-league club and there it is about community in both the positive and negative senses.
I have lived in the town for forty years now, but I don’t have a local accent, nor was I born and bred there, so I don’t qualify as a ‘townsman’. The club was a works one before it was re-formed so many fans were among the six thousand or so who used to work for the firm. The atmosphere, I should add, is generally relaxed and friendly. One way people cope with a globalising world is to emphasise the local and the shared memories of past triumphs and setbacks.