“Someone said to me 'To you football is a matter of life or death! ' and I said 'Listen, it 's more important than that '. (Bill Shankly)
Soccer is a sport that crosses boundaries and is played all around the world. It brings people together to enjoy the intensity of 90 minutes filled by passion and uncertainty of who will ultimate winner. Most of the people who watch soccer do it in a passive way as a source of mild entertainment, but there’s a growing minority of fans who have taking the faith on their teams in a whole new level. This people often called Ultras, are the new wave of extreme soccer fans who came here to stay. By analysing their cultural context, political influence and lifestyle we can understand in a much profound ways …show more content…
After he took over power he developed a strategy in order to reinforce hyper nationalistic ideals in the young generations of soccer fans such as not letting foreign players to play, or give the “Roman Salute” to the flag before every game. “Mussolini’s nationalistic strategies on the development of the beautiful game in Italy, assesses the degree of football’s political manipulation during the country’s more turbulent years until now, and consequently addresses the disturbing, yet overlooked, issue of racism in Italian football.” ("Fascism, Separatism and Theultràs: Discrimination in Italian Football." Soccer & Society 12.5 (2011)) This constant advertising had deep repercussions in Italian society that still remain in modern day and are often overlooked by governments and professional soccer institutions such as FIFA ( Fédération Internationale de Football …show more content…
In countries where the political environment has been volatile Ultras had risen against the government in form of resistance. Egypt is one of those cases, in which they had suffered from very strict authoritarian governments and in 2013 they toppled a democratically elected president who was later killed by the reigning government. People came out to the streets to protests, and Ultras were banned by the government because their freedom of expression seemed like a threat to them. Ahmed, one of the leaders of the Nahdawy and a member of the Ultras in Egypt said on an interview “We don’t like violence but we are not weak. Hope keeps us going.... This regime is more brutal but there still are options. Success for us is our survival and ability to keep trying... Politics is about making deals; revolution is putting your life on the line. We are the generation that staged the revolution.”( Dorsey, James. "Egypt Bans Ultras in Bid to Break Anti-Government Protests." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.) After all, Ultras are normal people who just choose to express their ideals through soccer, and if they feel oppressed by a government they will express their ideals because that’s bigger than them, and it’s something worth fighting
Soccer is a sport that crosses boundaries and is played all around the world. It brings people together to enjoy the intensity of 90 minutes filled by passion and uncertainty of who will ultimate winner. Most of the people who watch soccer do it in a passive way as a source of mild entertainment, but there’s a growing minority of fans who have taking the faith on their teams in a whole new level. This people often called Ultras, are the new wave of extreme soccer fans who came here to stay. By analysing their cultural context, political influence and lifestyle we can understand in a much profound ways …show more content…
After he took over power he developed a strategy in order to reinforce hyper nationalistic ideals in the young generations of soccer fans such as not letting foreign players to play, or give the “Roman Salute” to the flag before every game. “Mussolini’s nationalistic strategies on the development of the beautiful game in Italy, assesses the degree of football’s political manipulation during the country’s more turbulent years until now, and consequently addresses the disturbing, yet overlooked, issue of racism in Italian football.” ("Fascism, Separatism and Theultràs: Discrimination in Italian Football." Soccer & Society 12.5 (2011)) This constant advertising had deep repercussions in Italian society that still remain in modern day and are often overlooked by governments and professional soccer institutions such as FIFA ( Fédération Internationale de Football …show more content…
In countries where the political environment has been volatile Ultras had risen against the government in form of resistance. Egypt is one of those cases, in which they had suffered from very strict authoritarian governments and in 2013 they toppled a democratically elected president who was later killed by the reigning government. People came out to the streets to protests, and Ultras were banned by the government because their freedom of expression seemed like a threat to them. Ahmed, one of the leaders of the Nahdawy and a member of the Ultras in Egypt said on an interview “We don’t like violence but we are not weak. Hope keeps us going.... This regime is more brutal but there still are options. Success for us is our survival and ability to keep trying... Politics is about making deals; revolution is putting your life on the line. We are the generation that staged the revolution.”( Dorsey, James. "Egypt Bans Ultras in Bid to Break Anti-Government Protests." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.) After all, Ultras are normal people who just choose to express their ideals through soccer, and if they feel oppressed by a government they will express their ideals because that’s bigger than them, and it’s something worth fighting