Fear and Loathing in World Football Global Sports Series

The quickest entry-point into most local cultures anywhere on earth is to be found in talking football. Historically, football is one of the great cultural institutions, and has played a key role in shaping and cementing senses of national identity throughout the world. However, the nature of intra-nation hostility, which may be based in football or use the game as a theater for antagonisms, has yet to be analyzed.

Teams, clubs and regions increasingly establish cultural identities through rivalries and opposition. Such rivalries invariably have deep historical antecedents enforced by prejudice, myth or religious conflicts, economic inequalities, or class and ethnic divisions. Disorder and violence are routine byproducts of the game the world over, and aggression, or the threat of it, characterizes many matches.

This timely book is the most extensive and incisive collection yet published on the antagonisms relating to football around the world.