Torbjörn Andersson
Department of Sport Sciences, Malmö University

Football, Power, and Politics in Argentina
186 pages, hardcover
Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2024 (Critical Research in Football)
ISBN 978-1-03-260399-5
If someone had randomly asked me which big football country has the most chaotic football audience, I would have spontaneously answered Argentina. Now a study has come out that far supports the claim, namely the Argentine cultural anthropologist Eugenio Paradiso’s Football, Power and Politics in Argentina from 2024, a book included in Routledge’s fine series Critical Research in Football. The very readable and suitably long study shows that the organized chaos, to use the author’s own words, actually encompasses the whole of football in general. All parts live in a destructive symbiosis, from the country’s power-hungry and football-crazed presidents to corrupt football leaders and violent fans organized in various so-called barras bravas groupings. It’s about men, men and more men. In the midst of this mess, Argentina still managed to bring home the latest World Cup gold in football, a feat that undeniably strengthens the fascination with this mythical football nation.
Thematically, the book deals with violence, corruption and morality in Argentine football, all interwoven in the political clientelism that binds the system together. Clientelism is the unequal power and status relations that are based on the moral system of favors and favors in return. The system has been strengthened by the fact that the Argentine clubs are member associations – something that, paradoxically, in Sweden is seen as a guarantee of a more democratic and sustainable football culture. The prestige of Argentine football and the voting procedure have meant that politicians have been drawn as magnets to the clubs’ presidential posts, which have since served as megaphones and springboards for careers in national politics. In Sweden, it would not give many extra votes for a politician to say that AIK is the favorite team; a number of politicians have been chairmen and board members of Swedish clubs, without any political ulterior motive or effect. In fact, the opposite is true, as the opposition to Fredrik Reinfeldt’s wobbly football career highlights. In Argentina, on the other hand, football has such a central position that free football on state television has been an important election issue. Between 2009 and 2017, the top division’s matches were actually shown for free on television or online. The ranking of football is shown by the fact that Greater Buenos Aires has the highest number of large football stadiums in the world: 36, each with room for over 10,000 spectators.
A survey showed that Argentinians believe that only the police as an institution are more corrupt than the country’s football clubs.
If Paradiso’s study has a weakness, it would be that the researcher’s contact with barras bravas representatives has been sporadic. It was deemed too dangerous to approach them. Paradiso also lives and works in Canada, which is why natural openings into the groups have not existed. Instead, his knowledge of these important people is mainly based on external experts. But this deficiency is probably greater for an Argentinian reader, who already has a good preconception of the violent fan culture, than for a more ignorant international readership. The allure of the Argentine fan culture is shown by the fact that one source of income for barras bravas is to sell tickets to football tourists at an expensive price and also offer to join them under their protection in the dangerous stands. The coveted tickets have been given to them by the club management as a return favor for something or simply to get the support of the potentially dangerous group. The system would not have worked with half-empty stands, but it is based on the circumstance that the big clubs are popular. The fact that the Argentine top league is teeming with Buenos Aires derbies – the most significant between the middle-class River Plate and the popular Boca Juniors – has helped fill the stands. One effect of this has been such a male-potent and violent crowd that away supporters have been banned from Argentine top-flight football since 2013. However, the question is how this has affected the development. An Argentine organization has tried to map all deaths linked to football violence, a number that counted from the first death in 1922 is now up to about 350 people, certainly a world record. However, the death toll has accelerated since 2013, which is explained by the fact that showdowns between the increasingly mafia-like barras bravas now mostly take place outside the framework of football matches. The battles seem to be at least as much about economics as about football rivalry.

If Argentine club football has long been surrounded by a certain amount of violence, then the really downward slope started in connection with the dictatorship in the 70s. At that time, violent supporters began to be used by the regime in the hunt for the political opposition. It is during this dark epoch that the ties between club management and barras bravas become tightened. A survey showed that Argentinians believe that only the police as an institution are more corrupt than the country’s football clubs. Both club leaders and barras bravas leaders have benefited from the clientelism that has had a prominent position in the country since at least the political Peronism of the 1950s. The fact that the police are more likely to help barras bravas than chase them is part of the overall picture.
Against this turbulent backdrop, it is no wonder that the country’s top players have left Argentina to play in Europe’s better functioning football environments. One can suspect that Argentina would not have won World Cup gold if its star players had remained in the organized chaos of their home environment. But perhaps they would not have won if they had not learned to deal with various kinds of stressors in Argentina’s football chaos. It is a strength to master both organization and chaos. Paradiso’s hyper-interesting study is a reminder of what can happen if football becomes too important. It can be argued that football has already become too important for its own good. Perhaps football’s growing global greatness should be seen as yet another sign that the world is not heading in the right direction.
Copyright © Torbjörn Andersson 2025