Friday, June 15, 2012

Another football is posible

On the day that England play against Sweden in Euro 2012  SOYMB expresses some thoughts on football and socialism.

BSkyB have just secured the broadcasting rights for 116 matches per season and BT bought televised football rights to 38 games, including almost half the "first pick" games on offer , boosting the Premier League's next TV deal to a record £3bn over three years, a 71% increase. Each individual televised match will now cost the broadcasters £6.6m. This equates to at least £14m more per year for each football club, with the bottom team in the league from 2013-14 onwards likely to receive more than the £60.6m Manchester City earned this year for ending the season as champions. The problem England have, John Barnes,  former Liverpool and England player, explains is that the corporate giant that is the Premier League rules all to the detriment of the national team. "The Premier League has taken over the importance, prestige and kudos of the game".

 In the Barclays (the bank) Premier League everything is measured by money and the success that that money has bought, and the money that that success will then generate. Money has become an increasingly divisive issue in football. Clubs under private ownership are always going to be vulnerable to the whim and folly of the individuals with the biggest shareholdings

Football functions on so many levels. It can be big business, moving astronomical quantities of cash, with obscene salaries for owners, coaches and star players. And it can be a widely played sport, found in every park, street or patch of waste ground. Football like  music is an international language. It is an expression of identity. Football is played by millions of people around the world and watched by hundreds of millions more. It is the “people’s game”. Jack Kemp, a former Buffalo Bills NFL quarterback turned Republican congressman, took the House floor to oppose America’s successful bid to host the 1994 World Cup. Our football, he declared, embodies “democratic capitalism”; their football is “European socialist.” Marc Thiessen, formerly a speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote, “Soccer is a socialist sport,” and “Soccer is collectivist.”

Football teams are socialist in nature. They play for each other, and individual brilliance is often subservient to the common good. Team sports provide valuable social learning experiences and there are certain social values inherent in football. In fact, it is especially in football that an individual performance can hardly be separated from a team effort (penalty kicks may be the only exception.) Any apparent individual achievement, lets say a long solo run, can only be successful when your team mates open space for you, lead opponents astray etc. Similarly, a direct free kick involves the team mates’ blocking and/or distraction of the opponent’s defence. As great as your individual skills might be, they will count for nothing if they are not accordingly supported and strengthened by your fellow players. In football you learn how to act in solidarity. You can’t play alone. When someone is in a better position you have to pass them the ball. Even the language of team sport is socialist - United is used by 15 clubs in England's top four division divisions in their title. A coach of Barcelona, perhaps one of the most successful club ever and owned by the supporters for the supporters said "We play leftist football. Everyone does everything." The club's own foundation supports children in developing countries as well as UNICEF -- and a football club with 170,000 members. This is why the 57 million supporters of Barcelona believe that they are not only better fans, but arguably also better people.

The success of a football team depends on how well the team’s individual complement each other as a collective . It is a known phenomenon that teams of no names can beat teams full of great individual players simply because they make the better collective while the great individual players don’t work together .And it is a known phenomenon that a lot of football players who look great in their respective clubs disappoint in the national squad ( or the other way around ) because they don’t get to display their full abilities in the context of a specific collective setting. This the point that John Barnes tried to make when he said a few years back "Football is a socialist sport. Financially, some may receive more rewards than others but, from a footballing perspective, for 90 minutes, regardless of whether you are Lionel Messi or the substitute right-back for Argentina, you are all working to the same end. The teams which embrace the socialist ideology rather than having superstars, are the teams that are successful. Or if there are superstars they don't perceive themselves to be that. That's why I use Messi as an example. As much as he's a superstar he respects his team-mates and their collective efforts."

Barnes highlights that in today’s professional football few of these ideals remains. Most players are so concerned with their individual careers that their individual performances mean more to them than their team’s achievements, and in general there is very little loyalty to a team and its fate. There is also a lack of kinship amongst and respect for other players, and although the sense of collectivity experienced in a football team can extend to the supporters where some speak of the supporters as the “twelfth player” there are hardly any concrete relationships left between the players and their fans.

None of this means to diminish the importance of the individual performance for the team. The individual performance is very important. If a player on a football team doesn’t fulfil his or her role, of course, this has an immediate negative effect on the team as a whole. We are not saying that the individual performance loses its importance in football. What we are saying is that the individual performance doesn’t have any meaning outside the team’s performance - the bottom line is that in a true teams sport the individual performance can’t be separated from the collective.

It is referred to as the "Match of the Century", Hungary's 6-3 demolition of England at Wembley Stadium in 1953 and is seen by many to mark the birth of football's modern age. Tom Finney summed up the match as "race-horses against cart-horses". Gusztav Sebes, the manager of the 'Magical Magyars,' was the man most responsible for the game's shaping place in football history - 'Total Football'.  Sebes, the son of a cobbler, was attracted to the idea of every player pulling his equal weight and able to play in all positions fitted neatly with his famous socialist ideals. He  described it as "socialist football", and his history as a labour organiser in Paris and Budapest no doubt honed his equally celebrated ability to inspire his men. Hungary's goalkeeper of the time, Gyula Grosics, later recalled: "Sebes was very committed to socialist ideology, and you could sense that in everything he said. He made a political issue of every important match or competition, and he often talked about how the struggle between capitalism and socialism takes place on the football field just as it does anywhere else." Many of the players refused to return to Hungary with the outbreak of the Hungarian 1956 Revolution. 

Brian Clough, who gave tickets for Derby's games to striking miners was once asked by the former Labour MP, Austin Mitchell, whether he was a superstitious man? "No, Austin, I'm not," he answered. "I'm a socialist." Sure he drove a Mercedes, but he wanted everybody to be able to drive a Mercedes. A slice of bloody cake for all, that was his philosophy. Upton Sinclair, said, ’the first duty of a socialist is to declare that he is one’ and Cloughie said it loud and often "For me, socialism comes from the heart. I don't see why certain sections of the community should have the franchise on champagne and big houses."

Bill Shankly believed football and socialism were inseparable. "The socialism I believe in is not really politics. It is a way of living. It is humanity. I believe the only way to live and to be truly successful is by collective effort, with everyone working for each other, everyone helping each other, and everyone having a share of the rewards at the end of the day. That might be asking a lot, but it's the way I see football and the way I see life." If a player was having a poor game Shankly would expect a team mate to cover for him and bail him out like you would do for a neighbour or a colleague down the coal pits. All for the greater good of the team.Shankly's socialism took an idealistic, pure form. He didn't trust politicians, even the staunch Labour men who stood in his own constituency, as he blamed them almost as much as the mine owners for the conditions he and his family lived in. Shankly's attitude was such that he felt a strong bond to his fellow man and wanted to see their lot improved. A hero of Shankly's in this respect was the poet Robert Burns, who Shankly recognised as an early socialist and admitted he was inspired by  "A man's a man for a' that"

Is it possible to be a socialist and a top-level footballer?

Former Scotland international Gordon McQueen who played for Leeds and Manchester United in the 1970s and 80s says: "Football is all about money and greed and everyone's involved in it. " came from a family and from an area that was and still is solid Labour. In fact, there were more communists than Tories." Of today's players he says "...they don't live in the real world. They're cosseted in a way we never were. I'd say 99% are totally uninterested in politics."

But who can forget 1997 when Liverpool player Robbie Fowler celebrated scoring by pulling up his shirt to reveal a T-shirt expressing support for striking dockers. As a gesture it was widely appreciated even if Fowler is a multi-millionaire. Clough was right. Socialism doesn't necessary exclude you from living in a big house.

The ex-Argentinian captain Xavier Zanetti got his Italian club Internazionale to donate €5,000 (£3,400) to help Zapatista rebels in Mexico. "We believe in a better, unglobalised world enriched by the cultural differences and customs of all the people"

Some footballers can care about the world and the hardships of a life they left behind.

It would be so easy to write football off as little more than  “bread and circuses” that distracts people from fighting for a better society. The corporate domination can leave a bitter aftertaste. Support for national teams all too easily finds expression in crude nationalism and xenophobia. Football has provided a fertile breeding ground for neo-Nazi and extreme right-wing groups. But teams such as the German club St Pauli for example, have well-organised anti-fascist and anti-racist supporters’ groups, regularly organising protests against racism and far-right groups. St Pauli are often heralded as Europe’s last great rebel club, a little bastion of football socialism from Hamburg’s red light district.  Lazio of Rome was the club of Mussolini and retains a large fascist following today. Italian club AS Livorno has long been associated with the Left and banners of Che Guevara can be seen waving in the stands at the team's home games. Real Madrid was the club of Franco falangists and Barcelona of the Catalan nationalists. When asked to play a friendly match against the Zapatistas, left-leaning club Inter Milan gladly took up the offer encouraged by its bohemian supporters who see their team as a counterbalance to AC Milan, owned by right-wing former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Dynamo Moscow was run by the Soviet secret police, the KGB.  Beria, Stalin’s most feared henchman, was a keen football fan and former amateur player, and took an active interest in the running of Dynamo. Spartak Moscow, took their their name from the Roman slave rebel Spartacus and became the people’s club challenging the dominance of the government-run clubs. FC Union Berlin is widely recognised as one of Germany's non-conformist "Kult" clubs, based on their very emotional rivality with Dynamo Berlin in former GDR times when Dynamo was affiliated with East Germany's Secret Service Stasi. This circumstance led to an unofficial opposition against the government with the fans singing chants against the authorities. And, of course, here in Scotland we are presented by Celtic, an organising ground for the cause of the Irish Rebels and the Union Loyalists Rangers. Politics and football have a symbiotic relationship. Politics can influence and be influenced by what happens on the field of play. Like club sides, national teams are no longer as homogenous as they once were due to the effects of immigration. Football — and all sport — is as much a battleground for social justice as any other arena. The German national team in the 30s operated as an exercise in public relations for Hitler's regime. The squad played England in a friendly in London in 1935 and were relatively well received. At the 1938 World Cup in France the Nazi German team were met with a hail of rotten fruit and howls of derision wherever they played

Another football is possible!

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