The Paradoxes of Politicisation: Fan Initiatives in Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

The idea that football is closely connected to national identity and nationalism is not new. Several aspects of the game — the competitiveness, focus on physical strength, idealisation of the body, the associations that clubs make with fixed geographical identities and the often deep sense of emotional connection, make the link an easy one to make, and it has been made countless times in football research. However, the connections between football and nationalism, and sociological studies of nationalism in the Balkan context more generally, have been the predominant focus over the past two decades by sociologists, activists and Western media reporting on the recent wars. They have tackled themes such as football clubs’ use of history (Sindbæk, 2013), particular violent incidents as a key to understanding the escalation of war, such as the clash at Maksimir Stadium in May 1990 (see Ðorđević and Žikić, Chapter 3 in this volume; Ðorđević, 2012; Mihajlovic, 1997), the enrolment of and control of sports’ associations by Tuđman’s government in Croatia (Brentin, 2013), as well as critical analyses of media representations of football fans as hooligans (Obradović, 2007) and constructions of masculinity amongst Bad Blue Boys in Melbourne, Australia (Hughson, 2000).