I just finished a book by Franklin Foer that makes the unlikely link between football (I insist on saying football, not soccer) and globalization. After reading many books and articles that analyse the economic forces and impacts of globalization, it was refreshing to read a book that takes on globalization from a very different perspective.

The title of the book is a bit misleading, as Foer is not at all able to offer an alternative theory of globalization. Still, it is very interesting reading, and offers many insights into how football has acted as a catalyst of globalization. I want to highlight three examples from the book - of which one is depressing and frightening, one is hopeful, and one is just plain interesting.

The Serbian Massacre
The Serbian massacre in the Balkans in the 1990's was in large parts carried out by fans of the football club Red Star Belgrade. Red Star became a symbol of the Serbian identity, and the hard-core followers can best be classified as hooligans, still the shame of football and a terrible side effect of the game worldwide. Hooligans use team identity as an excuse for carrying out violence and are often just slightly interested in the game itself. In the Red Star case, Serbian leaders noticed how organized the hooligans were, and recruited them with the help of a charismatic leader, Arkan, in the fight against the Croats and Bosnians. By channeling their anger from the football field to the political field, Serbian leaders got a highly organized fighting force that contribued to the atrocities that took place.

There are also other shocking examples of hooliganism and violent rivalries between teams, such as the one in Glasgow, Scotland between Celtic (a catholic team) and Rangers (a protestant team). However, football can also catalyze the more positive forces of human nature and globalization, with Iran being a good example.

The Football Revolution in Iran
Believe it or not, football has played an important role in the fight for gender equality in Iran. After the game was introduced in the 1930's and gained popularity, women increasingly demanded access to the games and to be able to celebrate the achievements of the national team, which were forbidden along with many other rights for women. By watching games from around the world on TV, Iranian women saw how women in other countries were allowed into stadiums and started demanding the same at home. In a historical event in the 1970's, when the Iranian national team played an important game, thousands of women demonstrated outside the stadium and demanded access to the game. By sheer force of numbers, the police had no other choice than to let them in. Eventually women were granted full access to the games.

However, after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, women were again denied access. In the last couple of years, especially before the Iranian national team's participation in the World Cup in June 2006, there have again been strong movements for the rights of Iranian women to attend a football game. In an interesting turn of events, which illustrates the current power dynamics in Iran, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in April 2006 announced the lifting of the ban, only to be reinstated by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a month later.

The culture wars in the US
Football has never been very popular in the US, but the interest for it has grown as it has become easier to follow the sport through the media and the internet. But there is a very interesting difference between the fans in the US, compared to the fans in the rest of the world. While in other parts of the world football is hugely popluar among the working class, in the US it has been the middle class that has embraced the game. Foer argues that football became the sport of choice among the baby-boomers that were protesting against the Vietnam war and US imperialism. Football was the sophisticated and provocative alternative to the traditional American sports such as American football and baseball, which represented traditional American values. Conservatives hated the sport.

The divide between football lovers and haters also extends to the political, sociological and cultural arena. Football is popular in liberal states and among the educated middle class that are open to and embrace foreign impulses. These are often also art and literature lovers, a strong contrast to the typical European football fan. The European aristocracy usually considered football a game for the working class and kept their distance to it. In the US, it is the working class that hates the game. Football is less popular in conservative states where people treasure traditional American values and sports, and are sceptical of anything new and foreign. Finally and obviously, but also a telling tale of the impact of globalization, football is a lot more popular in areas with large immigrant communities.

Overall, the book is very interesting and enjoyable, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in globalization and identity.