Grass-roots football, autonomous activity and the forging of new social relationships

Abstract

This study highlights the efforts of grass-roots, not-for-profit football clubs to create a sustainable game that, at the elite level, has become decoupled from the local communities most originated from. Examples are offered of clubs specifically set up in response to what are seen as unacceptable levels of infringement by the market into football, and of clubs that have been specifically set up as part of a wider organizational resistance to the ravages of neoliberalism. Fundamentally, the task here is to contextualize these clubs in relation to their various points of resistance and involvement in the dynamics of commodification and decommodification and within this context to provide conclusions regarding the meaning and significance of these organizations. Thus located, it is argued that elements of the grass-roots game form part of an alternative social relation irreconcilable with the current social system that views us as passive consumers of the commodities it produces; a social relation which creates the possibility of a non-alienating system for the provision of our needs operating via a network of enterprises outside of the laws of the market.

Notes

^1. The European Union commissioned Independent European Sports Review (2006) recommended a fit and proper persons test for all potential owners of football clubs and structured supporter involvement to contribute to improved governance of football clubs. The report highlighted the work carried out by Supporters Direct in Britain, an organization which aids the foundation and development of football supporters' trusts committed to the principle of mutual ownership of shares in football clubs. Noting the absence of a pan-European body representing the interests of supporters that UEFA could enter into structured dialogue with, it advocated enquiries into the feasibility of ‘rolling out’ the British Supporters Direct model at a European level. In 2009, a joint UEFA/Supporters Direct report was published entitled WhatIs the Feasibility for a Supporters Direct Europe? See European Commission, Independent European Sports Review, 72–3; Suporters Direct, ‘What Is the Feasibility’.

^2. In 2010, top-division clubs in Europe had run up bank debt and commercial loans of €5.5 billion; 32% of clubs are in negative net equity (that is, their debts are larger than their reported assets). ‘The European Football Club Landscape’, UEFA Report, February 2010. High-profile casualties of the debt-driven financial model adopted in Europe have been Italian clubs AC Fiorentina (2002), AC Parma (2003) and SSC Napoli (2004), all declared bankrupt, and later to re-emerge under slightly different identities after spells in the lower Italian leagues. In Holland, bankrupt HFC Haarlem had their 121-year existence terminated in 2010, and BV Veendam were declared bankrupt in the same year. In Spain, RC Celta Vigo filed for voluntary insolvency, and Real Sociedad and Levante have also gone into administration. Unable to find a backer to take on its debts, RCD Mallorca went into voluntary administration in 2010. In England, Leeds United FC (Champions League semi-finalists in 2001) went into voluntary administration in 2007; West Ham United FC narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2009 when their holding company, Hansa Holdings, went into administration; and Portsmouth FC filed for administration after running up €160 million in debt.

^3. Football has become, or is in the process of becoming, a business, and the relationship between football clubs and their supporters is becoming narrowly defined in terms of producer and consumer. Whilst there is little doubt that professional football, as with professional sports in general, is experiencing commodification, as we have argued elsewhere, the reality is that football clubs are not simply businesses, nor can they ever aspire to be organizations driven solely by the desire to expand or protect economic value. Football's desire to be seen as a community asset based on local identities and traditions, on the one hand, and its pretensions to be a business, on the other hand, contradict each other and rest on an uneasy compromise. Clubs hover between this ontological uncertainty: between being businesses and being community assets. See Kennedy and Kennedy, ‘Football Supporters’.

^4. ‘A History of FC United of Manchester’, http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/m_history.php. It should be noted that the new club did not receive universal approval from other Manchester United fans as a strategy to oppose the incoming Glazer regime or, indeed, other long-standing issues of club governance, and relations between pro and anti FC United factions were, and remain, tense. As Adam Brown explains: ‘FCUM was for some itself the “splitting” of a formerly united fan community; whilst for FC fans, the failure of others to uphold the “no customers, no profits” and “not for sale” position of the anti- Glazer campaign was itself a betrayal, some describing those that carried on at Old Trafford as ‘Vichy reds’.

^5. FC United of Manchester Manifesto, http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/m_manifesto.php.

^6.Brown, ‘Politics, Theory and Practice’, 353–4.

^7.Porter, ‘Cultures of Resistance’, 238–9.

^8. For example, one FC United member involved with the club's communal dimension comments ‘We should always stand up for your beliefs and political activism is the way to go for it’. Another concludes that ‘It's us getting out there and saying ’you know what fuck this shit system' you know what I mean. We're going to get out there and show them we'll do it our way, that to me that is what FC [United] is’. Quotations taken from Shafto, ‘An Examination of Social Activism’, 45. However, as Porter points out, this transformation does not necessarily extend to the majority of supporters under these circumstances: ‘Fans can still be deeply divided over just how “political” their club should be. For some there may be an obvious desire to intervene and take purposeful action for the social, cultural and economic good … but when this is bracketed in a way they see as conventionally “political”, away from football matters, the same goodwill is not so easily extended’. Porter, ‘Cultures of Resistance’, 245.

^9. SV Austria Salzburg Official Website, http://www.austria-salzburg.at/en/news/austria-salzburgscoming-home/

^10.Football Supporters Federation, ‘Modern Football’, http://www.violett-weiss.at/img/20060113FSF.pdf.

^11. ‘Secrets of the Superbrands’, BBC3 documentary programme, May 31, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011fjbp.

^12. As well as gaining ultra support from across the board in Austria at such clubs as Sturm Graz, Wacker Innsbruck, SK Rapid Wien and Austria Wien, support for the Initiative Violett-Weiß was given further afield. In Germany, ultra groups displayed banners in solidarity, as did clubs in Holland, Romania, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Belgium. The ultra-groups message was unequivocal in its rejection of what was viewed as an aggressive takeover of a social and community hub by a force viewing football only as a means for furthering commodification. The banners on display to support the Initiative Violett-Weiß read: ‘Fuck Red Bull’, ‘Red Bullshit’, ‘Tradition and Heart – Not For Commerce’, ‘Smash Red Bull’, ‘Solidarity With Salzburg’, ‘With Austria Salzburg – Against Modern Football’. See ‘Initiative Violett-Weiß’, Austria Salzburg fan website, http://www.violett-weiss.at/solidaritaet-bilder.php.

^13.Football Supporters Federation, ‘Modern Football’.

^14. Quote from Kuhn, ‘Grassroots Football’.

^15. Quote from Simpson, ‘Easton Cowboys’. A European network of such alternative approach football clubs have come to prominence in the past two decades, many of which come together annually in football tournaments. Some of these are from Germany, ICE Neckerstrasse of Stuttgart, Teutonia 1452 of Bad Muskau, Kampfender Herzen of Freiburg and Internationale Harte of Hanover; fellow-minded clubs of Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls from England include Republica Internationale of Leeds, 1 in 12 Club of Bradford; from Belgium there is The Lunatics of Antwerp; from Lithuania are FC Vova from Vilnius. See Simpson and McMahon, Freedom through Football, 72.

^16. In 2004, the club became important campaigners in the fight to retain a public space (‘Packers Field’) for wider community use when a newly formed local Academy school attempted to fence the ground off. The Cowboys organized Community Fun Days and agitated for it to be protected it by having it declared a Town Green. The issue became a local political battleground.

^17. The Alternative World Cup is an annual three-day tournament involving 20 or more teams, begun in the late 1990s by community-based clubs in Europe. Here is a video of the 2010 event held in Yorkshire hosted by Leeds club Republica Internationale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = zAKXyweet4g See also http://nigewritesfootball.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/yorkshires-alternative-world-cup-2010/.

^18. For a full account of the Cowboys' first tour to Chiapas in 1999, see Simpson and McMahon, Freedom through Football, 87–114. KIPTIK homepage, http://www.kiptik.org/.

^19. Words of Roger Wilson, founding member of the Easton Cowboys, quoted in Kuhn, ‘Grassroots Football’.

^20. Words of ‘Zandra K’, Line 17 blog: ‘Taking Responsibility for Our Lives’, April 22, 2012. http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl = en&sl = sv&u = http://forsjutton.se/&prev = /search%253Fq%253DN%2525C3%2525A4tverket%252BLinje%252B17%252Bfootball%252523%2526hl%253Den%2526client%253Dfirefox-a%2526hs%253Doe9%2526rls%253Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%2526biw%253D1280%2526bih%253D865%2526prmd%253Dimvns&sa = X&ei = DTQ9UJz7KIal0AX7hoGwBQ&ved = 0CCYQ7gEwAA.

^21. Information taken from Kuhn, ‘Grassroots Football’.

^22. Ibid.

^23.Kahan, Mind vs. Money.

^24.St John, ‘Post-Rave Technotribes’.

^25.O'Hara, The Philosophy of Punk, 27.

^26.Mason, ‘Up for Grabs’.

^27.Eikenberry, ‘Refusing the Market’.

^28.Permanent Culture Now, ‘No Place for Capitalism’.

^29.Marx, Capital.

^30.Gottdiener, New Forms of Commodification.

^31.Harvey, A Brief History.

^32.Walljasper, ‘All That We Share’.

^33.Holloway, Change the World.

^34. Party political power is now being challenged by a number of non-governmental level organizations in Europe. Whether their concerns are environmental, income inequality, peace and human rights, race or gender issues, they are all centred around demands for social justice and motivated by a search for ‘democracy from below’. The new social movements are supranational in composition. The No Border Network, for example, are a movement set up to secure the rights of immigrants without papers to remain within the European Union. The organization has a membership spread across countries in Europe committed to resistance to repatriation of non-EU migrants and who take direct action against EU border regimes, for example by setting up border camps. Another organization, the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC) campaigns: ‘… for the regulation of financial markets, the closure of tax havens, the introduction of global taxes to finance global public goods, the cancellation of the debt of developing countries, fair trade, and the implementation of limits to free trade and capital flows’. See ‘About Attac’, ATTAC website homepage, http://www.attac.org/node/3727.

^35.Kuhn, ‘Grassroots Football’.

^36.Totten, ‘Freedom through Football’, 157, 165.