LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 11: England football fans celebrate England's first goal during a Hyde Park screening of the FIFA 2018 World Cup semi-final match between Croatia and England on July 11, 2018 in London, United Kingdom.The winner of this evening's match will go on to play France in Sunday's World Cup final in Moscow. Up to 30,000 free tickets were available by ballot for the biggest London screening of a football match since 1996. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
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A friend of mine opened a play in Buenos Aries several years ago. Ten minutes into the opening night a slovenly, drunken, and dishevelled figure pushed his way into the darkened theatre, parked himself on the front row and started to abuse the actors on stage. Now my friend — Micky — is from Belfast and is no shrinking violet. Having had enough of this man’s rudeness, he strode down the aisle preparing to eject him from the theatre, whereupon the Argentinean assistant director physically restrained him. “Rugby tackled” was how Micky described it to me. Ashen faced, the assistant director pointed to the drunk and gave a one word explanation for his vigorous intervention: “Deus,” he whispered.
“Football isn’t a game, nor a sport: it’s a religion” as Maradona — for it was he — once explained, a man whose hand was once compared to that of the Almighty himself. Later Micky would be invited back to Maradona’s nightclub. “Deus!” the clubbers all cried, as if the messiah came among his people. If they had had palms, I expect they would have waved them. Christianity has 2.2 billion followers worldwide. Football has three billion.
Many labour under a fantasy about how our deepest commitments are formed. That fantasy is often described as “being rational” — and it assumes that there is, or should be, a line of logic that can be followed from shared first principles all the way through to the things we believe in and commit too. It’s not true, of course. Many of the things we commit to, we do so because they exist prior to a line of reasoning. Our love of country, our religious faith. And nowhere is this more true than when it comes to football.
How it came to be is lost to memory, but I remember even as a child having posters of my heroes on the bedroom wall: Peter Osgood, Peter Bonetti. And my children have had the same. Didier Drogba for my eldest. Christian Pulisic — “Captain America” — for another. My youngest child is just two. When I ask him what team he supports, he answers correctly.
Chelsea is owned by a Russian oligarch and former Putin confidant, Roman Abramovich. He may or may not have made his billions through dodgy dealings in the wild east of post-Soviet Russia. But — and here is the thing — I don’t really care. Some of the players I have lauded in the past may have been little better than thugs. I even have a top with John Terry’s name on the back. He may not have been the most morally commendable of chaps. But — I don’t really care. I am slightly ashamed to admit it, but there is something about my football commitments that precede even my moral ones. When Chelsea got itself involved with the ill-fated Super League idea, I tweeted out that if they went through with it, I would abandon them. But I suspect I wouldn’t have. Some commitments just run too deep.
This is what scares liberals about the holy trinity of football, faith and nation. They are tribal. And our continued pre-rational allegiance to such things threatens the whole liberal/Enlightenment idea that rationality must form the basis for our fundamental take on the things.
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SubscribeI applaud the fans who boo when England “take the knee”, and won’t be watching any of the games.
I go out of the room until the game actually kicks off, so I get a mini-protest and see the game. Hopefully, the boo-ers will continue.
I’m sure they will.
The liberals will not be allowed to take football away from the people they despise.
I am undecided whether to support Russia or Hungary
I wonder what Team the bitter rump of Remainers will support ?
Im guessing Germany ….
“Why Liberals are scared…” because fear of non-liberals is the sine qua non of today’s liberalism.
Sure, and all people on the right do is complain about liberals
Do not kid yourself, football and sport in general is the means by which the liberal elite distract the people of this country from what they are doing. Look at how desperately it is pushed by the BBC. Opium of the people and all that
I’m pretty sure that’s a huge exaggeration
some may consider themselves above these glorious, intoxicating, irrational tribal loyalties, but none are immune to the necessity of belonging and, like all who repress desires, it inevitably pops out, like a haemorrhoid born of a fibreless personality, in other, more damaging, even more irrational ways, like those who self-identify as woke. When trying to debate with them the virtues of one particular ethical stance over another, you may as well be arguing (correctly) that Harry Kane has made Didier Drogba seem like Mickey Quinn in comparison, but no matter how many graphs and statistics and facts and golden boots you thrust into their ‘reasonable’ faces, they will insist that Drogba is the greatest, or that it is electorally viable to reject the concept of a multi-nation state when challenging for the premiership of a multi-nation state
I suspect that liberals are jealous of the way that fans can form passionate bonds almost instantly with each other – as well as being able to share fleeting moments of the most extraordinary happiness.
I suspect it’s either jealousy, contempt – or more probably – both.
Liberals are able to make bonds and be happy.
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They do form passionate bonds to their ideology which is one reason they can’t think
Tragically it also means that there is no hope for homo sapiens-since it is tribalism per se, in its many forms, that is continuing to thwart much increase in practical wisdom……….just as well there is footy on saturday !
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The failure to adequately acknowledge these sources of commitment and feeling, what Jon Haidt calls “moral foundations”, threatens to make our society ever more divided. But I am optimistic that bumbling dodgy Boris can rescue us.
Hard to know if Giles Fraser is being serious. Football is a debased form of religion, one which involves no beliefs or spirituality, an allegiance to colours no matter who is wearing them, and an addiction to the twin impostors of triumph and disaster.