‘Here, we are all equal!’: soccer viewing centres and the transformation of age social relations among fans in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

The spread of soccer viewing centres (SVCs) in Nigeria is one of the unfolding legacies of global sporting media in Africa. While, providing access to live broadcast of European soccer competitions, SVCs have developed into supplementary social spaces where culturally defined rules of social relations are contested. Using Goffman's notion of performance and Agbalagba in Yoruba normative system, in conjunction with sociological perspective on space, the study explores the context and processes in the transformation of age social relations in Ibadan, South-Western Nigeria. Data were obtained through participant observation, and 23 in-depth interviews with viewing centre owners and soccer fans. Findings depict the SVC as a constructed space, with conflicting meanings, attitudes and practices, which inadvertently fracture and render fluid, the expectations of norms of age social relations. In conclusion, European soccer drives the spread of supplementary social spaces which impact local social structures in critical ways.

Notes

1. Hodges, ‘Hooligan as “Internal” Other?’; Roversi, ‘Football Violence in Italy’; Spaaij and Anderson, ‘Soccer Fan Violence’; and Vrije and Vliegenthart, ‘The Contentious Fans’.

2. Alber and Ungruhe, ‘Fans and States at Work’; Dixon, ‘Learning the Game’; Dóczi, ‘Gold fever(?)’; Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans’; and Majaro-majesty, ‘Ethnicity, Conflict and Peace-building’.

3. Ben-Porat and Ben-Porat, ‘(Un)Bounded Soccer’; Dart, ‘New Media, Professional Sport’; Dubal, ‘Neoliberalisation of Football’; Giulianotti, ‘Sport Spectators’; Giulianotti & Robertson, ‘Glocalisation, Globalisation and Migration’, ‘Forms of Glocalisation’; Guschwan, ‘Fandom, Brandom and the Limits’; Hognestad, ‘“Rimi Bowl” and the Quest’; Kraszewski, ‘Pittsburgh in Fort Worth’; and Rowe and Gilmour, ‘Sport, Media, and Consumption’.

4. Dixon, ‘Fan and the Pub’.

5. Rowe and Baker, ‘The “Fall” of What?’.

6. See Lawrence, ‘New Wrinkles’, 309.

7. Majaro-Majesty, ‘Ethnicity, Conflict and Peace-building’; Omobowale, ‘Sports and European Soccer’; and Ortserga, ‘Globalisation: Mode of Penetration’.

8. Following the definition contained in the African Youth Charter, ‘youth’ or ‘young people’ are used interchangeable in the study and they refer to persons between 51 and 35 years of age. See African Union Commission, African Youth Charter, 3.

9. The chronological definition ‘60 years and above’ is commonly used in categorising people as elderly or old. In sub-Saharan Africa context, this threshold has since been contested as inappropriate because it is not sensitive to the social contexts of ageing in the region where life expectancy at birth was 55 years in 2006. In this study, we adopted the ‘50 years and above’ threshold which was suggested at a workshop organised in 2000 on Minimum Data Set Project on Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa and sponsored by the United States National Institute on Aging and the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa. See Kowal and Peachey, ‘Indicators for the minimum data’ and Velkoff and Kowal, Population Aging in Sub-Saharan’. Also, the terms ‘elderly,’ and ‘old people’ are used interchangeably in this article.

10. Neugarte, Moore and Lowe, ‘Age Norms, Age Constraints’.

11. Omobowale, ‘Ethnographic Textual Analysis’.

12. Ogola, ‘The Idiom of Age’, 569.

13. Ibid., 569.

14. Goffman, The Presentation of Self.

15. Omobowale, ‘Ethnographic Textual Analysis’.

16. Akindes, ‘Football Bars’.

17. Ly, ‘Dispatch from Mali’.

18. Zenenga, ‘Visualising Politics’; Fridy and Brobbey, ‘Win the Match’; Fletcher, ‘You Must Support Chiefs’.

19. Clignet and Stark, ‘Modernisation and Football’.

20. Chiweshe, ‘Till Death Do Us Part’.

21. Vokes, ‘Arsenal in Bugamba’; Farred, ‘Long Distance Love’; Baller and Cornelissen, ‘Sport and the City’.

22. Akindes, ‘Football Bars’.

23. Ibid., 2185; Baller and Cornelissen, ‘Sport and the City’; Vokes (2010) in ‘Arsenal in Bugamba’ reveals how Europe-oriented fandom practices are changing existing pattern of social relations in rural Uganda.

24. Saavedra, ‘Football Feminine’.

25. Bankole et al., ‘Does Cross-border Broadcast’.

26. Olaoluwa and Adejayan, ‘Thierry Henry as Igwe’.

27. Majaro-Majesty, ‘Ethnicity, Conflict and Peace-building’.

28. Omobowale, ‘Sports and European Soccer’; Onwumechilia and Oloruntolaba, ‘Transnational Communications, Attitudes’.

29. Omobowale, ‘Sports and European Soccer’, 624.

30. Onwumechilia and Oloruntolaba, ‘Transnational Communications, Attitudes’.

31. Tade, ‘He is Father Christmas’.

32. Tade, ‘He is Father Christmas’.

33. Ibid.

34. Majaro-Majesty, ‘Ethnicity, Conflict and Peace-building’.

35. Ikuomola, Okunola and Akindutire, ‘Ritualised (Dis)order: Street Carnivals’.

36. Majaro-Majesty, ‘Ethnicity, Conflict and Peace-building’.

37. Ibid.

38. Adetunji, ‘Discursive Construction of Teasing’.

39. Omobowale, ‘Ethnographic Textual Analysis’.

40. Ibid.

41. Neugarte, Moore, and Lowe, ‘Age Norms, Age Constraints’.

42. Goffman, The Presentation of Self, 8.

43. Zieleniec, Space and Social Theory, xiii.

44. Ibid., 42.

45. Ibid.

46. Ndamba-Bandzouzi, et al., ‘Violence and Witchcraft Accusations’.

47. Fayehun, Adebayo and Gbadamosi, ‘The Media, Informal Learning’.

48. Baller and Cornelissen, ‘Sport and the City’; Vokes, ‘Arsenal in Bugamba’.

49. Adetunji, ‘Discursive Construction of Teasing’.

50. Ogola, ‘The Idiom of Age’.