Soccer vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics

by Gabriel Kuhn, Boff Whalley (Foreword)

Soccer has turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Professionalism and commercialization dominate its global image. Yet the game retains a rebellious side, maybe more so than any other sport co-opted by moneymakers and corrupt politicians. From its roots in working-class England to political protests by players and fans, and a current radical soccer underground, the notion of football as the “people’s game” has been kept alive by numerous individuals, teams, and communities. This book not only traces this history but also reflects on common criticisms—that soccer ferments nationalism, serves right-wing powers, and fosters competitiveness—exploring alternative perspectives and practical examples of egalitarian DIY soccer. Soccer vs. the State serves both as an orientation for the politically conscious football supporter and as an inspiration for those who try to pursue the love of the game away from televisions and big stadiums, bringing it to back alleys and muddy pastures. This second edition has been expanded to cover events of recent years, including the involvement of soccer fans in the Middle Eastern uprisings of 2011–2013, the FIFA scandal of 2015, and the 2017 strike by the Danish women’s team.

Genres: Football, Soccer, Nonfiction, Politics, Sports

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Ted Hunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book had some interesting sections, it is not one that I would recommend. First of all its format is that of a scrapbook: a majority of the text consists of articles and interviews from other sources. Occasionally small visuals are inserted into the text, but since there are no captions, it is often difficult to figure out what they refer to. The author's thesis is that there is a strong connection between soccer and politics. Not exactly earth-shattering. But the narrative is all over the place, from the analysis of the working class roots of most of world soccer, to the ways that money has taken the professional game away from the working class, to the way that soccer reflects the racism and sexism of various societies, to the ways that different teams have been used as manifestations of different political ideologies. The book makes some good points, but I gave up trying to remember all of its contradictions. First of all, soccer, like every sport, is competitive, which makes it inherently contradictory for it to be used to promote values like socialism and anarchism. The author decries the disappearance of the terraces in English soccer, as that is where the workers tended to congregate, but those sections of the stadium were where blind allegiance to a club (which the author also decries) was at its strongest. It is also where the right wing knuckleheads that the author hates tended to watch the games. He spends a lot of time praising teams like Barcelona and Athletico Bilbao for representing the separatist impulses of the Catalan and Basque sections of Spain, respectively. But Barcelona, especially, is a business enterprise that has spent untold amounts of money accumulating some of the most expensive soccer talent in the world. (And both of these teams have added advertising to their uniforms, which they did not have when the book was written ten years ago.) Do Barcelona's fans cheer for them because they are Catalan separatists or because they bring home championships? The Medellin drug cartel of Colombia are described as murderers when they killed Colombian soccer star Andrés Escobar after his own goal against the U.S. in 1994, but when the book discusses how goalkeeper René Higuita was imprisoned for a kidnapping tied to the drug cartel, the author defends the cartel as sort of a Robin Hood institution. As I moved through the book, I found myself skimming more and more of it, as a lot of the "cut and paste" entries referred to precise details of the soccer worlds and politics of other nations with which I had little familiarity. In short, if you are interested in examining the connection between soccer and politics, skip this book and pick up Franklin Foer's "How Soccer Explains the World."

[foxfire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book. This is a great coffee table reader where you can pick it up and just find a short piece to peruse, as well as many lengthier interviews and even some academic analyses of the game. Every leftist fan of soccer should pick this up, and every soccer fan curious about leftist politics should pick this up. I look forward to reading this again and drawing lessons from it for years to come.

[Ramiro Guerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a book written for me, obviously.

I like to look at the social condition through “radical” lenses, and through sport as well.

As I’ve become more obsessed in the world’s most popular sport, I’ve also taken an interest in its role in radial politics and how fans with my similar view enjoy the game....

Definitely glad I stumbled across this title by accident.

[Cole Diment · Rating 4 out of 5]

The section on socialist tactics and better rules that foster inclusivity was brilliant

[Jacob Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beautiful game has been one of the great ambivalences of my life. I adore the athleticism and artistry of players, the serendipity of chance and destiny that tinge games, the passion and pride of teams and their fans (the act of singing with hundreds of fans cannot be beaten). However, I also deplore the often toxic machismo, nationalism, sexism, and violence that sometimes accompanies the aforementioned 'beauty', and the crass commercialism and exploitation of the sport. Beauty, solidarity, hard work, collide with brutish tendencies and the greedy of the market that sees players, fans, and the game itself as a "brand"

Perhaps it mirrors my views on society, smushed down onto a pitch?

This book really spoke to that tension, and to the possibility of a sport that could be otherwise. It is stuffed with documentary sources, musings, interviews, and a history of the radical and working-class origins and present of football. This makes this an invaluable resource and curiousity for people like me.

So, this gets a recommendation for anyone in my miniscule niche; if you love football and long for a more just game and a more just world, this book may be for you.

[Sugarpunksattack Mick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gabriel Kuhn’s ‘Soccer Vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics’ is an excellent book and a valuable resource for those who inhabit what are often seen as two totally different worlds: the world of sports/soccer and the world of activism/politics. Kuhn has spent time in both worlds having played semi-professional soccer at one point and having been involved in various political projects and publishing several other books. Kuhn’s experience is reflected in the book and makes it a valuable source for someone coming from either side—either from soccer-to-politics or politics-to-soccer.

I am coming from the politics-to-soccer perspective. I have an understanding of politics and political history, but had only the faintest knowledge of soccer (beyond how to play) and its history. Kuhn presents a pretty general history of soccer providing a basic overview and the historical changes over time. As a popular and basic overview of soccer and where soccer and politics intersect this book is perfect. I personally wanted more depth when it came to certain sections, but I don’t think the intention of the book is to present a historians account of the game. I think where the book lacks some historical depth it makes up by offering many primary sources.

The primary sources are made up of sort writings and excerpts written by participates—soccer players, soccer personnel or folks involved in the game in other ways. Two articles in particular that stand out is: a piece written by Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) and an excerpt from a book on a community sports organization called the Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls. Both these two articles—along with the whole book—point towards an alternative culture of soccer outside of the commercialized entertainment model towards one based on community and participation.

Although this book bounces around a bit too much, it is useful for orienting someone who is trying to get their political/soccer bearings, and where it lacks depth it offers an endless list of other sources to turn to.

[Аркула · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5/5

Radically drab book.

Or not a book at all. The format is actually what makes it drab and hard to digest for the most part. It's some form of a scrapbook, with cut-in interviews, vignettes and explanatory pieces making more than 80% of the actual content. This gets tiresome very quickly, as plenty of them are just different angles or stories on the same topic, some are just straight boring, and a lot of the featured people just need to touch some grass honestly. The narrative is also just all over the place, trying to explain everything from working class roots of the game to ultras and terrace culture; sometimes it succeeds, sometimes it fails, which is natural because rarely anything in this book was actually written by its author. By far the worst sections were those about "alternative football culture", actually the parts about nonsenses like 3-way football or not keeping the score or whatever. These are essentially types of recreation, which I just consider irrelevant for the global debate about football and absolutely don't want to read about in the book that is about the football politics.

Also, some of the observations have just aged terribly, such as repetitive praises of FC Barcelona for not having a shirt sponsor (today they boast the highest shirt sponsorship in world football, earning €70 million per season from Spotify) or criticizing FIFA for giving too many World Cup spots to European nations (the expansion to 48 teams arguably benefited every other continent but Europe).

Of course, the main ideas were interesting, otherwise I would never pick up this book at the first place. If anything, it for sure is not falsely advertised - it's about everything left wing football related. It goes without saying that some of the entries are great. Overall, I do agree with the main notion that corporatization and greed are killing the game we all love, who doesn't? I also agree that something should be done, but this book doesn't actually provide any realistic ideas what we could do, although the question is can anything be done at all...

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

a lot of good information, but I thought some of the exerts included could maybe have been trimmed down

I thought the conversation in the appendix (in later editions) about the need to not romanticise the lack of corporate interest in women's football particularly good - football should not be monopolised by the rich but nor should women who play football be recompensed less than men who play football. a tricky issue, particularly for supporters of club owners sportswashing through investment in the women's game to divert attention from their domestic marginalisation of women

I thought a topic that could be explored more is the apolitical (read as political, and conservative) movement in football which views poppy wearing as non-political (read as good) but not wearing a poppy as political (read as bad)

[Alexis Vasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read and serves as an introduction to the issues that have plagued football since its inception. As a fan of Howard Zinn’s style of writing, I enjoyed the scrapbooking nature of the book filled with photos, news articles, newspapers and other primary sources. It allowed me to see the history and evolution of left wing football and even provided sources to investigate more.

One of my favorite sections detailed how the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico would host football games with teams around the world. They had developed a strong relationship with Inter Milan and this would lead to clean water projects.

I would recommend this book to any football enthusiast who wants to learn more about the cultural and

[Yousif Elbeltagy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a fascinating and insightful book as I haven't seen many books explicitly mentioning the intersection between Leftist politics and football. The book lacks a true structure but points out cool and interesting facts with many articles from other football writers across the globe. I will look into buying shirts from some socialist and communist clubs but the author uses the word "soccer" too many times for my liking. He also seems to have a thing for anarchist perspectives of football, yeah miss with that stuff. I wouldn't read it again but rather pull out a few sections and chapters instead.

[Rudy Buehler · Rating 3 out of 5]

For lovers of the beautiful game as well as those interested in radical politics and the intersection between the two. There is a lot of good history and plenty of interesting and important ideas in this book. Unfortunately, it does become a little repetitive by the end. I very much appreciated the acknowledgement of the commercialization of the sport and the ways that soccer can still be used as a unifying force for good. More of a collection of ideas than a true sports book. Definitely worth a read.

[Ravi Shekhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

For someone who's interested in politics and football, this is an absolutely must read book!

The book talks about how football, which appears to be a reactionary past time, can be utilised in defiance of racism, sexism and other societal issues. Sepcial focus on anarchist groups who are redefining what it means to play, support and love football!

My favourite quote:
" Football is like democracy: twenty two people play and millions just watch"

[Maarten de Groot · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of interesting material in this book, but all the pieces of other authors and interviews with people from the footballing world break the text in a sometimes absurd way, making it a book that is quite hard to read. Also, because of these breaks, the point that the author wants to make sometimes get a bit lost. Still liked the combination of politics and football and quite enjoyed reading some parts, so 3/5.

[Revista Panenka]

La cuestión de cómo el fútbol ha sido abordado desde un punto de vista político es el tema central de este libro escrito por Gabriel Kuhn, activista de izquierdas austriaco que hizo sus pinitos en el mundo del fútbol amateur. Kuhn desglosa sus propios comentarios, con aire de izquierda algo radical, a una colección de ensayos, reportajes y entrevistas que versan sobre el fútbol.

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Puedes encontrar esta review en el #Panenka11. Disponible en
tienda.panenka.org.

[Meaghan Gallagher · Rating 2 out of 5]

could not finish despite getting halfway through. this is kind of a textbook, but the author writes about 40 pages, using the work of others for the other 250 without any context. why do I care about this interview im reading? I have no idea who it is and why it matters. I'm interested in the government vs. football. not the political ideologies of individuals. had such great hopes

[Adanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed this. Contains so many interviews and primary sources which really enrich the points made. The first section I found especially enlightening. Would have been 5 stars but I think some of the interviews in the second section were a bit tedious and could’ve been edited better

[Rhys Webster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m being generous with 4 stars cause 3.5 would probably be better. As somebody else has mentioned it’s a bit of a scrapbook, however the content included is informative and interesting, and clearly well researched. The author adding 3 of his own interviews at the end was a bizarre touch, mind.

[Magnus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed parts of this book a lot and some of the stories in it are outrageously gripping. However I found the format difficult. The collected essay format didn’t pull me along and some of the chapters were harder reads. Still an amazing introduction and overview on radical politics and football.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Box-to-box. Bustling with ideas about radical transformations of/through football.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is difficult to remember at times that the corporatized play thing of the super rich that elite sport has become is not the way it has always been or in many cases still is. Whereas corporate sport encourages us to become consumers, while mouthing the vacuous truisms of encouraging participation, there remain, out there, sports cultures that set out to undermine that world. So, it was with some excitement that I started out on a book subtitle ‘Tackling Football and Radical Politics’ and with some sadness that I report that it is uneven, but then perhaps this is more a sign of my (high) expectations than it is major problems with the book.

Part of the problem may be, I confess, that this is what my job is about – I get to work for my living as an academic historian of sport, and as an ‘old school’ lefty there wasn’t much in the first half or so that was new for me. More to the point it didn’t really feel like it held together in a compelling argument; rather, it seemed to be an uncomfortable mish-mash of factoids and incident reports about footballing politics, about individuals and clubs that exhibit left-activist moments or presences but that on the whole became more like a compendium. As a result, for my historian’s sensibility, became more antiquarian than rigorous history, although in some places it is clearly recovery history as well and there is good and important material here from underground sport and left cultures, some of which in English for the first time.

The second half picked up however by doing two things – first, it became less concerned with the development of football’s left-activism and became more focussed on the activism of the now when dealing with corporate football – so we get good discussions of anti-fascist, anti-racist and feminist politics in contemporary football. Second, and in a more compelling manner, Kuhn turns his attention to those whose presence and participation in football demonstrates ways that alternative sporting, not just footballing, cultures can be built. There is some extremely good material about doing sport differently, and the problems of being political sportspeople, of how doing sport politically is seen by many as giving up the struggle when it can also be seen as doing politics in communities – most impressively in an essay by Roger Wilson reprinted here dealing with a community sports club in Bristol that is neither demanding political identities of its members nor sacrificing their political engagements. This latter half is really good and well worth the time it takes to get there through the first half. There is also a good appendix exploring radical and critical approaches to football in various cultural contexts – literature, non-fiction, film and music – as well as a useful set of on-line links.

There is a lot here that is valuable and important, it is a good introduction to alternative histories of football that have been over-written by corporate sport’s reworking of its past and by romanticised and nostalgic views of football history, there is much to inspire options for alternative ways of doing sport while maintaining it as recognisably the sports we play and enjoy – it is just that Kuhn hasn’t really struck a balance between educating us by debunking myths about what was and inspiring us to activism about what could be; but then that is a lot to ask for in one book.

[Matthew Antosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Soccer vs. the State: Tackling football and Radical Politics' is a very good introduction not only to the radical side of the international soccer world, but also an introduction on how radicals have and should approach sports in general.

I think the overall message of the book can be sumed up as "yes, Soccer and sports can be racist, homophobic, sexist, nationalist, etc, but it also can be a place for resistance, beauty and collectivism and unless radicals engage within that world we are letting the forces of reaction keep it terrible." I think that is an important message in a milieu that is often either openly hostile to sports, or radicals hide there fandom to ensure that they don't seem unhip.

There is a quick overview of radical politics across the world; the couple of paragraphs in North America's soccer was short, which is understandable, but disappointing in its shortness as there is a hidden history of soccer in North America (for example, Gorilla FC (Gorilla Football Collective) a supporter group for the Seattle Sounders FC was original founded by anti-globalization activist group, Guerrilla FC.)

I also learned from this book that there are allot of myths we take for granted about Euro Football and it's realtionship to leftist politics. The mythology surrounding FC St. Pauli get's hit hard a couple of times ( for example, FC St. Pauli's stadium, the Millerntor, was from 1970–1998 known as the Wilhelm-Koch-Stadion. Wilhelm Koch was a member of the nazi party who profited from slave labor).

I would recommend this book to others interested on where sports and politics collide, and who have a great interest in soccer.

[Matti Karjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

May God punish England! Not for nationalistic reasons, but because the English people invented football! Football is a counterrevolutionary phenomenon. Proletarians between the age of eighteen and twenty-five, i.e., exactly those who have strenght to break their chains, have no time for the revolution because they play soccer.

Kirjassa siteerattu saksalaisten anarkistien lentolehtinen 1920-luvulta kertoo vähän siitä, millaisesta kirjasta tässä onkaan kyse. Gabriel Kuhnin "Soccer vs. the State : Tackling Football and Radical Politics" (PM Press, 2011) ei nimittäin ole ihan perinteinen jalkapallokirja, vaan se keskittyy käsittelemään kuningaspeliä yhteiskunnallisesta näkökulmasta. Jokaisen futisfanin pitäisi melkein lukea artikkeli FIFA:n ja Etelä-Afrikan hallituksen toiminnasta MM-kisoissa 2010.

Vasemmistolaiset ja anarkistiset näkökulmat jalkapalloon ovat pääasiallisesti varsin kiinnostavia, vaikka ihan jokaista juttua ei voisikaan itse allekirjoittaa. Nationalismia, rasismia, homofobiaa ja huliganismia käsitellään, samaten Barcelonan ja St. Paulin kaltaisia seuroja, ruohonjuuritoimintaa kuitenkaan unohtamatta.

Lisäksi kirjasta löytyy myös kiinnostavia anekdootteja vuosien varrelta, kuten esimerkiksi juttua ranskalaisten jalkapalloammattilaisten radikaalista liikehdinnästä 1960-luvun loppupuolella, Argentiinan MM-menestykseen johtaneesta ja sotilasjunttaa vastustaneesta César Louis Minottista tai Pohjois-Korean yllätyksiin yltäneestä MM-joukkueesta vuoden 1966 MM-kisoissa.

[May · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contrary to what my Goodreads shelves say, I don't often read sports-related non-fiction but this is the second book now where the presentation of the topic has left something to be desired. Similar to Simon Kuper's Soccer Men, I found the layout and the presentation of the various essays to be at times confusing. Unless you are intimately familiar with the soccer topics, it's sometimes to follow the train of thought as it meanders from an article, to an interview, then to a pamphlet extolling the virtues of an English soccer club to then what I assume might be the author's attempt to tie all these elements together with some sort of summary. Some of the topics were fascinating like how popular the women's game was in the 1920s but how FIFA torpedoed its development. I felt like there were these fascinating loose threads that left you hanging and then disappointed when the subject disappeared. I did like the concluding chapter which offered a literature review of the books, articles, movies, and songs related to soccer that one could check out.

[Ciarakehoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read, and an eye-opener to the politics of football in Europe. I particularly enjoyed reading about the adjustment of the working-class to the realities of big-money football: starting their own teams, reclaiming teams that had been abandoned. While these teams never reach premier divisions, their games remain affordable to workers, the original footballers. Also excellent on radical football -- anarchist, anti-racist, etc.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An investigation into the politics of football, what it means to be a fan or a player, reconciling your politics with the game's less savory aspects, and more, including an array of interviews with players and fans alike and primary sources from throughout the last century.

[Donavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a collection of articles by various authors. I would have preferred a sustained narrative. Still the information was important and thought provoking.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vaguely interesting but boy Marxist history is rubbish.