This book is an investigation into the identifications and stories told by football supporters about some ill-defined entity called "Europe". The title is inspired by the often heard phrase that successful English football teams are aiming to "get into Europe", when they are actually seeking qualification to UEFA club competition. The core interest is therefore to consider whether the experiences of football fandom (and the ways in which these are recounted) may be developing identifications with Europe and whether this may legitimate the EU or assist in reducing intra-European xenophobia.
This research is concerned with the consumption of football in English and European competitions, with more than one eye on fan perceptions of transnational developments in the sport and its possible socio-political resonance. Fan discourses are extremely important given that close to 13 million people walked through the turnstiles to watch Premier League (the highest division in English professional football) in 2005/6 season. Hundreds of millions of other fans watched the same games on television across the globe, to such an extent that television companies are prepared to pay £2.7bn for three seasons worth of Premiership games (BBC News 2007). However, the research is also centrally interested in the development of European identities, particularly in respect to the way „Europe‟ is consumed. It is concerned with the tensions of discourses which, on the one hand, present Europe as abstract and almost ill-definable and, on the other, with a Europe situated within everyday lived practices. So, this book is about both sport and Europe, which are two social issues of great social magnitude and in this book the voices of football fans – those that propel the sport to such levels - are heard.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)