Spanish Football and Social Change

Sociological Investigations

R. Llopis-Goig

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137467959
• Print ISBN:
  9781349691432
  9781137467942
• Subtopic: European History

In the past few decades, Spanish football has undergone a significant transformation, both on and off the pitch. Llopis-Goig analyses these trends, questioning the role of football in contemporary Spanish society and examining the historical reasons for its social hegemony.

1

Spaniards’ Secular Ritual

Football is the most popular sport in Spain, and its strong attraction is clearly reflected in its economic dimensions. Recent estimations of the economic influence of Spanish football concluded that it had an effect on production of some €4,000,000,000, almost one per cent of the general Gross National Product (GNP) and about 1.2 per cent of the GNP of the services sector (LFP, 2004). Adding in other indirect effects, such as employee remuneration and the gross operating surplus, the total impact of Spanish football on the Spanish economy climbs to €8,066,000,000, approximately 1.7 per cent of the overall GNP and 2.5 per cent of the GNP of the services sector, and it provides direct or indirect employment to almost 66,000 people (LFP, 2004). Within this vast economic reality of Spanish football, two clubs have an especially significant economic impact: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. According to the study carried out by the Deloitte auditing agency every year, in 2011 these two clubs – for the third consecutive year – were the clubs with the highest incomes in the world, billing €479,500,000 and €450,700,000, respectively (Deloitte, 2012).

However, when talking about the economic impact of Spanish football, one is actually referring to professional football, conceived of as a sport-spectacle and, therefore, the basis for its transformation into a product of mass consumption. Nevertheless, today’s football is also a physical-sport activity capable of attracting people from diverse social situations as players. Whether as a practice linked to leisure, recreation and fun or as a federated competitive practice, football is the most important sport practised in Spain.

The two aforementioned dimensions provide a clear example of the way football currently advances in different directions based on values and interests that can be contradictory, giving it a somewhat paradoxical nature. On the one hand, as a sport-performance it is undergoing a process of growing professionalization whose development is based on an economic rationale, commercial profits and scientific-technological advances. On the other hand, as a popular sport activity, it is practised for reasons of fun-recreation, health and social integration. In any case, in both its sport-spectacle facet and its sport-physical exercise dimension, football plays an important role in people’s lives, as both dimensions are intended to break up the daily routine, and they are located in the space of leisure and free time.

These two dimensions are not, however, the only ones operating in the logic of Spanish football today. For many years, the social sciences have highlighted football’s potential as a space for expressing collective identities (Bromberger, 2000, p. 262). In the majority of European countries, football was initially established as a ritualized public sphere that produced representations of what is national or regional. In Spain, during the first third of the 20th century, football became organized regionally and expressed what are now known as regional identities. Currently, football clubs continue to have a strong potential for affiliation, and they have become institutions with great public prominence (Llopis-Goig, 2006a).

The three above-mentioned dimensions are a clear example of the multidimensional character of football, and they show that this complex social phenomenon cannot be explained one-dimensionally or from a unitary perspective. Football has a competitive dimension directly inherited from traditional sports, but it also includes physical activities of a popular nature that have little formal organization and are constantly undergoing diversification and innovation processes. There is an aspect of football that is related to consumption and linked to its transformation into a show, but it can also be considered a space for the expression and affirmation of collective identities. Finally, the phenomenon of football is experiencing a growing rationalization and commodification, while also having the capacity to influence sociability habits and produce feelings of cohesion and solidarity. All of these elements make up the complex reality of today’s football.

The purpose of this chapter is to show the predominance of football in Spanish society based on the three dimensions mentioned above. The intention is to show that, as a sport-physical activity, as a show performed by professionals and designed for mass consumption, and as a space for the dynamics of collective identification, football holds a fundamental place in the sport and leisure habits of Spanish society (Llopis-Goig, 2011a). This chapter, however, is not limited to this objective, as it also provides an interpretation of the role of football in Spanish society. The second part of this chapter will describe football as the main secular ritual of Spaniards. This is the role it has played in Spanish society since the early 1900s, when numerous football teams were created, many stadiums were built, the number of fans increased considerably, and the sport became a spectacle for the masses (Shaw, 1987; Ball, 2010; Domínguez, 2011; Bahamonde, 2011). Certainly, in other European countries football also holds a prominent social position and has become a true secular ritual over time. However, the argument presented in this chapter is that the special combination of these two aspects in Spanish society has made football an especially relevant social phenomenon. The next chapter will show the historical process through which football has reached this predominant position in Spanish society.

The research is based on the analysis of various secondary sources, among which are two annual reports and five surveys. The annual reports used were the 2013–14 Professional Football League Annual Report (LFP, 2014) and the Sports Statistics Annual Directory (CSD, 2014), although in both cases editions corresponding to previous years were also consulted. The surveys used were: the General Summary from October 2013 to May 2014 of the General Media Survey (EGM, 2014); the Report on the Survey of Cultural Practices and Habits 2010–11 by the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sport of the Spanish Government (MCED, 2012); the May 2007 and June 2014 Barometers of the Sociological Research Centre (CIS, 2007; CIS, 2014, respectively); and the National Survey on Spaniards’ Sport Habits, also conducted by the same centre (CIS, 2010).

The predominance of football in the sport and leisure habits of Spanish society

According to the May 2007 Barometer of the Sociological Research Centre, 54.3 per cent of Spanish adults are interested in football. This proportion is much larger than what is obtained by other sports such as car racing (29.9 per cent) and tennis (29.6 per cent), more than double that of basketball (25.9 per cent) and motorcycle racing (22.8 per cent), and three times that of athletics (15.5 per cent). The interest in football remained stable for two decades; however, in the mid-1990s it began a growth tendency that was probably related to the transformation of the clubs into Sport Companies, the European community’s liberalization of the footballers’ job market (beginning with the well-known Bosman case), or the creation and restructuring of competitions like the Champions League. These events led to a profound transformation in football and increased its attraction, releasing it from the political stigma it had begun to acquire in the second half of the 1980s, when radical groups charged into numerous stadiums, producing an increase in violence (Viñas, 2006; Llopis-Goig, 2007b). At the end of the 1990s, the proportion of the population interested in football had already reached 49 per cent, a percentage that continued to increase until reaching the above-mentioned 54.3 per cent in 2007.

However, interest in football varies among diverse social groups. Gender is probably the variable most associated with an interest in football, as Table 1.1 shows (see p. 13) that football’s popularity reaches 71.1 per cent among men, but only 38.2 per cent in the case of women. In addition, the relationship with socioeconomic conditions is also significant: the proportion of people interested in football is quite high among skilled workers (69.8 per cent), students (63.6 per cent) or managers and professionals (62.2 per cent), while the lowest levels are registered among technicians and mid-level positions (45.8 per cent) and people dedicated to unpaid housework (38.6 per cent). Regarding age, a significant negative linear relation is detected, so that as age increases, the interest in football decreases: 62.7 per cent of young people from 18 to 24 years old are interested, while among people over 65 years old, the interest decreases to 50.4 per cent. A significant linear relationship is also detected in the educational level, although in this case it is curvilinear. The groups with the lowest and highest educational levels reveal a lower percentage of interest, 44.7 per cent among people with no studies and 46.4 per cent among those with high-level university studies, while the groups with primary studies and occupational training register higher rates of interest (59.4 per cent and 55.3 per cent, respectively). However, there are no significant differences related to habitat size, which demonstrates the broad geographical spread of interest in football.

Federated football practice

Sport practice has experienced extraordinary growth in Spanish society in the past few decades. Two indicators support this statement, one having to do with its popular practice and the other related to its federated practice. Regarding the former, while in 1975 popular sport practice was situated at 22 per cent, the most recent Survey on Sport Habits elevates it to 39.6 per cent (CIS, 2014). Regarding federated practice, there has been an impressive increase in the number of registered licences in the various Spanish sport federations, with their number being multiplied by more than seventeen during the 1960–2013 period, going from 201,296 to 3,394,635 (CSD, 2014).

Football as a federated sport has not been immune to this growth. There has also been an extraordinary increase in its presence among the leisure activities performed by the Spanish population. This growth trend is made evident by the increase in the number of licences registered by the Spanish Royal Football Federation during the same time period mentioned above: while in 1960 there were 43,436, in 2013 this number had grown to 855,987, nineteen times that of fifty years earlier. Thus, in spite of the large number of modalities that have enriched the repertoire of Spanish sport activities in the past few decades, the federated practice of football has experienced greater growth than the others, which clearly shows its prevalence. In fact, it was the sport modality with the largest proportion of federated licences in Spain in 2013, 24.6 per cent. Its volume of federated players is far superior to that of basketball, which appears in second place (with 400,153 licences: 11.8 per cent) or hunting (369,895: 10.9 per cent), golf (294,884: 8.7 per cent), mountain climbing (161,188: 5.0 per cent), judo (106,466: 3.1 per cent), tennis (89,830: 2.6 per cent), handball (91,819: 2.7 per cent), athletics (62,355: 1.8 per cent), karate (61,395: 1.8 per cent) and fishing (56,889: 1.7 per cent). These ten sport federations – out of a total of sixty-six – including football – surpass one per cent each, and together add up to 74.7 per cent. Therefore, football has resisted the widespread emergence of different sport modalities in the past few decades, and it has maintained its relative weight in the panorama of Spanish federated sports. Federated football licences have made up more than 20 per cent of Spanish federated sport licences since the beginning of the 1960s, when it represented 21.6 per cent. Since then, the proportion has generally been between 21 and 24 per cent; although at some points it has fallen below 20 per cent.

Football as a popular sport practice

Apart from these data, a recent Barometer of the Sociological Research Centre (CIS, 2014) reveals that, among the population over the age of 18 that plays a sport, 18.0 per cent practise football (see Table 1.1). This percentage includes the different forms, that is, football in a large stadium, indoor football, football 7, five-a-side and beach football, although the first one alone reaches 14.9 per cent. According to this study, 52.5 per cent practise it three or more times per week, 41.8 per cent once or twice a week, and 5.7 per cent less frequently. These data show that football is quite present and rooted in the daily lives of those who play it, as it is mainly played all year and regularly during the week.

Table 1.1 Some indicators related to football in Spain

Source: Llopis-Goig (2011a, 2014a). The data of interest and identification with a team come from the Sociological Research Centre (CIS, 2007), as do the data on the television audience (CIS, 2010) and the practice of football (CIS 2014).

Regarding the social profile of Spaniards who practise football, the data included in Table 1.1 reveal that playing football is significantly related to sex, age, educational level and socioeconomic position. In the case of sex, the rate registered among men is 29.5 per cent, while in women it is only 1.3 per cent. The differences according to age are even greater: in the group from 18 to 24 years old, football is practised by more than four out of ten young people (44 per cent), a percentage that descends to 0.1 per cent in people over 64 years old, drawing a negative linear relation. In the case of educational level, the lowest level of practice is registered in people with primary school studies (4.9 per cent), while the highest levels are found among people with secondary studies (24.2 per cent). Socioeconomic position also produces important differences in the practice of football: the lowest rates are registered among people who do unpaid housework (0.1 per cent) and retired people and pensioners (1.7 per cent), while the highest rates appear among students (44 per cent), unskilled workers (20.8 per cent) and the unemployed (23.7 per cent). Finally, there is no association between the practice of football and the size of the habitat. As Table 1.1 shows, the data are very similar at the different habitat levels.

Attendance at stadiums

According to Professional Football League data, during the 2013–14 season the attendance at first division football stadiums (BBVA League) ranged between 188,931 for the second game and 305,242 for the 38th, while in the second division (Adelante League) it ranged between 62,589 for the 15th game and 109,011 for the 42nd. For the entire season, there were a total of 9,621,052 attendees in the first division and 3,384,094 in the second division, or 13,005,146 attendees in all (LFP, 2014). As can be observed, the extraordinary mobilization capacity of Spanish football has not been affected by the emergence of numerous audio-visual distribution channels in the past ten years (cable television, satellite, Internet …). In fact, the accumulated attendance at the stadiums during the past decade has remained stable at between 12 and 13 million people (LFP, 2014).

According to a recent survey (CIS, 2007), 41 per cent of the Spanish adult population attended sport events at stadiums during a one-year period. Of this 41 per cent, 54.9 per cent say they bought a ticket to attend a football match at least once in the previous 12 months. This percentage is higher than the one for basketball, which appears in second place with 15.4 per cent, and much higher than other sport modalities that are quite popular in Spain, such as motorcycle racing (9.1 per cent), car racing (8.0 per cent), tennis (7.5 per cent) and athletics (3.9 per cent). These data make it possible to state that 22.5 per cent of the adult population bought a ticket to watch a football match in the past year. Taking into account that the universe in the survey was the population 18 years old and over, which at that time numbered 38,916,000, about 8,760,000 people attended a stadium during the year to watch a football match with a ticket bought at the stadium. This number is clearly higher than for any other leisure event or show habitually performed in Spanish society (MCED, 2012). Regarding the performing arts, the theatre has 7,473,000 spectators a year, ballet and dance performances 2,381,000, opera 1,025,000 and zarzuela (light opera) 618,000. Regarding musical concerts, classical music concerts drew a total of 1,726,000 spectators, while popular music reached 6,522,000 (in both cases, these concerts are for ticket-holders and are not free). Exceeding this number are the yearly visitors to museums, which reach 7,589,000 people (visitors with paid tickets). On the other hand, 6,816,000 and 6,416,000 people visit amusement parks and zoos every year, respectively. Theme parks and aquariums follow, with 5,881,000 and 5,749,000 visitors, respectively. Finally, bull fights receive 3,294,000 spectators annually, and circuses receive 3,176,000. Therefore, regarding the ability to attract the public, it can be said that football has a clear lead in the leisure habits of Spanish society.

Audiences at football matches

The previous data must be complemented with information related to audiences. In this regard, football also shows a clear superiority. In 2013, the ten most-viewed televised programmes were all football matches. They were watched by audiences ranging from 8.8 to 13.3 million viewers. The match with the largest television audience in 2013 was the one between Spain and Italy, as part of the Confederations Cup, which was played on 27 June 2013, with an audience of 13,355,000 viewers and a share that at some moments reached 67.9 per cent. The second most-viewed match of that year was the final match of the King’s Cup between Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid, with 11,449,000 viewers and a share of 57.8 per cent.

The data reveal that television has converted football matches into a ‘ritual’, where millions of people meet in their homes or public bars looking for experiences of collective emotion and enthusiasm. It is not surprising, therefore, that sport programmes are part of the habitual programming of television stations, because football, as a televised product, is not only one of the most highly demanded programmes, but it also obtains some of the highest audience percentages. This situation is reinforced by the fact that while 30 per cent of the Spanish population aged 15 and over claims to watch all, almost all or a lot of sport programmes, the percentage increases to 40.7 per cent in the case of football matches (see Table 1.1). The five variables analysed in relation to the consumption of televised football present a statistically significant association. Men consume televised football matches at a level almost triple that of the percentage registered for women (58.7 per cent compared to 23.1 per cent). In the case of age, a negative lineal relationship is detected: consumption diminishes with age. Among young people between 15 and 24 years old, a percentage of 49.8 per cent is registered that declines progressively with age until reaching 34.1 per cent among people over the age of 64. The population with no educational qualifications is located far below the average at 27.4 per cent, but all of the other groups obtain percentages that range between 36.6 per cent for people with mid-level university studies and 39.2 per cent for people with primary stud...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Introduction
• 1 Spaniards’ Secular Ritual
• 2 Historical Configuration
• 3 Team Identification and Football Culture
• 4 The Decline of the Spanish Fury
• 5 The Metamorphosis of Football Clubs
• 6 Detraditionalization, Hyper-consumption and Ambivalence
• 7 Inductor Masculinities
• 8 Hooligans, Ultras and Vandals
• 9 Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance
• Conclusion
• References
• Index