For kick and country: the 2010 VIVA World Cup and sport as a site for expressions of alternate ‘national’ identities

Abstract

The VIVA World Cup is an alternative football tournament for groups unrepresented in international sport, including groups that identify along political, geographic, ethnic, and linguistic lines. This study of the 2010 edition, held in Gozo, Malta, examines the organizers' insistence that their event is political and the ways in which the ‘national’ interests of participating groups challenged this position. While the VIVA World Cup could offer participants a site for resistance, the footballers in Gozo asserted cultural distinctiveness and celebrated affective attachments not to protest the exclusivity of world sport, but so that they could join in too.

Keywords:

• national identity
• sport
• football
• alternative identities
• Kurdistan
• Padania

Note on contributor

Russell Field is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba (Canada).

Notes

1. A consideration of the two-team women's tournament is beyond the scope of this paper, but the 2010 VIVA World Cup was a largely male event. No NF-Board executive members or event organizers were women, and with the exception of one Board member's mother, who arrived to staff the merchandise table, the event was run by men. There was in 2010, as there had been in 2008, a women's competition within the event – identified by a pink version of the blue VIVA World Cup logo. In 2010, as in 2008, this comprised one visiting team (Pandania in 2010) versus a local side. The Padanians were a very well-trained side; while the Gozitan organizers took things less seriously and fielded a team that had never before practiced together and who were soundly beaten in both women's matches. With economic realities limiting the number of teams who can attend, it might be wishful to think that challenging the gender order in sport would trump the bottom line. Nevertheless, in June, N.F. Board (2013) announced that it would hold the first stand-alone Women's VIVA World Cup in Western Sahara in December 2013.