David Rowe’s article on the media and the incident involving Zinedine Zidane’s head-butting of an Italian soccer player during the world cup examines the media’s treatment of suspected racism by the Italian player Materazzi in provoking the head-butt by possibly calling a terrorist and threatening sexual violence on Zidane’s family.  The article describes the extensive focus by the media on the actual words used by Materazzi in determining if he did in fact express racism prior to being head-butted.  This focus on the words rather then the context of who the players were, one a French born son of Algerian immigrants and the other an Italian whose country had colonies in northern Africa.  The article describes how even if explicitly racial epithets were not used the threats of sexual violence against Zidane’s family could be a reflection of colonialist ideas of emasculating colonial male subjects by sexually controlling the women.  Thus the conclusion of the investigation that said Materazzi did not express racism but only derogatory language to Zindane is not entirely accurate because of the lack of attention paid to broader context of the utterances.

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This article, published yesterday, describes how some players from the United States who had migrated from the US to play in European leagues are now are returning to play in the MLS.  This development is very good for the MLS as the quality of play continues to increase yearly.

This article describes how French players are being hired to play in the England’s Premier league.  They are attracted by higher salaries and the prestige of the league.  The article also shows that not only are players migrating from the third world to Europe for soccer but also among European countries.

According to those findings, average yearly salary for a play in Belgium’s top division was $284,300, versus $473,100 for a Dutch peer; and $727,900 in France’s Ligue 1. By contrast, that same survey estimated annual average salary in the Premier League at $2.2 million—not far from the pre-bonus figure of $1.82 million the Daily Mail worked up in 2011.

Chapter 3

The fascists in Italy had a number or uses for football that proved to be advantageous to their political goals.  One the referee crisis gave them an opportunity to step in and restore order during the dispute which made the government look like it had a handle on the situation.  After this established a precedent of government involvement in soccer the government attempted to regulate the leagues according to fascist ideals such as removing foreign players and coach’s despite the detrimental effect this had on the quality of teams.  To counteract this loss of talent the government declared any descendants of Italians living abroad could play for Italian teams.

Another aspect of this chapter that I found interesting was despite the fascist hopes of unifying the country through soccer the structure of the games threatened to lead to the development of regionalism which ran counter to and threatened the fascist ideals.

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This article discusses a star player in Malawi moving to play in Mozambique.  The player was the top scorer for his club and the article reports how the Malawi Football association complained that the player had not filled out all the paperwork required to leave for another team.  The article shows how smaller and less rich clubs try to use bureaucratic procedure to keep strong players being recruited by bigger clubs.

On Bosworth Field or the Playing Fields of Eton and Rugby? Who Really Invented Modern Football?

In the article about the origins of modern football the authors discuss what region of England is truly responsible for the game of modern football we know today.  The article discusses early football and how the game looked different then how we think of the game today and how the rules evolved.  The Sheffield region seemed to get the game into its more modern form in terms of rules.  In the region the sport enjoyed popularity among the elite although it was limited to amateurism due to the preferences of the elite who for religious or other reasons declined to allow the game in that region to be played professionally.  Since these men controlled the sport in the region the game was played at the amateur level.

In Lancashire the situation was different.  While the region adopted the basic rules of the game from Sheffield the region embraced professional players much more so that the Sheffield region.  Much of that difference in preference had to do with who was playing football in Lancashire compared to Sheffield at the time.  The Lancaster region players and club organizers were from the emerging lower middle class.

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Class, Ethnicity and Color in the Making of Brazilian Football

-The article discusses how the elites in Brazil picked up soccer from the British.  Some of the elites of Brazil would send their children to school in England and when the students returned they would bring soccer back with them and the popularity of the sport grew quickly.  The clubs that were first founded were elitist in nature and also functioned as social clubs.

“The clubs turned into places for urban socializing; by providing participation in or attendance at physical and sporting activities, they prolonged the receptions and soirées bringing together the dominant families from early twentieth-century sobrados (town mansions) in those two cities”(242).

-Football expanded to factory clubs where upper class managers and overseers would introduce the game to workers who would adopt it.  Barriers prevented working classes from mastering the game though due to them lacking the free time and money that the upper class could devote to learning the game.  Over time though workers who were skilled were afforded certain privileges.

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