The European Football Championships seen through sociological lenses

Björn Horgby
Örebro University

The first European men’s football championship was hosted by UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, and held in France in 1960. Four countries participated. In their book The UEFA European Football Championships. Politics, Media Spectacle and Social Change, sports sociologist Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen and media scholar Renan Petersen-Wagner study one of the mega-events of men’s football from a sociological perspective of power and identity, and from a media perspective.

The media study primarily addresses the European Football Championships as an arena, with the aim of discussing how media platforms work. Since the sociological study is more clearly linked to sports and football, I will focus on that aspect of the book here.

Historically, (Western) European countries have dominated the global football organization FIFA. UEFA fulfils different needs from those met by FIFA. Firstly, they concern the process of Europeanisation, which holds together geographical Europe (and Israel, which has been a member of UEFA since 1991), despite the Cold War; different national economic developments; and a division into center and periphery. Secondly, UEFA plays a major role in the media landscape as the rights holder for the European Championships and the Champions League.

UEFA was founded in 1954. The authors divide the history of the men’s national football tournament into four periods: the modest initial period (1955–68); a period of growth and consolidation, marked by growing media attention (1968–80); a period of new approach and further expansion (1980–96), characterized by a changing live sports/media landscape; and the post-1996 period when the European Championships began to compete with the FIFA World Cup. These periods also reflect UEFA’s changing circumstances. Mediatization has contributed to a strong increase in commercialization with the development of a financially strong football industry, partly financed by advertising and sponsorship revenues from global corporations.

The total number of text pages is 99. In addition, there are appendices and indexes. This means that the book is very condensed and lacks space for in-depth discussions.

Ever since the 1980s, UEFA (as well as FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, IOC) has derived considerable income – and power – from advertising and the sale of media rights – primarily television rights – to the championships. In recent years, the tournament has a turnover of billions of dollars. Its financial strength allows UEFA to act as a global sports policy player with hegemonic ambitions within Europe. The question is in what ways the economic power resulting from the European Championships has left its mark on UEFA’s political power vis-à-vis the national football associations.

It is obvious that the media landscape and football capital mean that both the championships and UEFA have a clear Western European bias. Thus, if the championships are to function integratively, it will be on the basis of Western European conditions – just as within the EU. However, the Western European concentration of power is not touched upon by the authors. Nor do they make a point of the fact that the European Football Championships for men and women are almost always held in Western Europe. Exceptions are that the former Yugoslavia hosted the European Championship for men in 1976 and Poland/Ukraine in 2012.

Professional sports and commercial media are part of nation-building processes. The organization of the European Championships also helps to strengthen the national identity of the host country. The authors argue that the European Football Championships mediates elements of national identities that both unite and delimit. I would have liked to see this idea developed much more – and not least the role of football in the relationship between the Europeanisation process and national identities.

The book is based almost entirely on English-language literature and some quantitative studies of social media. If football is a national unifier, it might have been interesting to further develop the problematization of the organization of football in Great Britain with the Home Nations, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, having their own national teams. Does the rivalry between the Scotland and England national teams contribute to the recurring Scottish demands for national independence?

A “nationwide” collaboration means that a couple or more nations co-organize the championship. Of late, the Nordic countries have applied to do so. However, these have not been approved by either the UEFA or the IOC, as they have lacked sufficient political support and the economic calculations have been too optimistic. The authors’ conclusion is that applications to arrange the European Championships together need to be combined with significant political work. Applications are not formulated for material reasons, but for social, cultural, and political reasons. At the same time, joint arrangements are attractive for financial and risk reasons. In this context, it would have been interesting with further elaborations on why certain countries have chosen to cooperate on an application to arrange a mega event.

The book contains seven short chapters of an article nature, which are relatively independent of each other. The total number of text pages is 99. In addition, there are appendices and indexes. This means that the book is very condensed and lacks space for in-depth discussions. Especially in the media studies chapters, the analyses does not communicate with the sociological.

As I have hinted, the authors have kicked a large number of balls up in the air in their study of the European Football Championships for men. It raises many interesting questions that I would have liked to see discussed in more detail. From my – perhaps limited – perspective, they could have developed the connection between the European Football Championships, national identities, and the perspective of Europeanisation considerably. UEFA needs to work on the Western European bias in their organization and the European Football Championships, but it is possible that its Western sources of funding will obstruct a change. In this way, the European Football Championships are being consolidated rather than being part of a process of change. The authors are aware that they base their analysis on men’s football, and they apologize for it, but male hegemony is also a consequence of the economic potential of the European Football Championships and its dependence on football’s economic capital.

Copyright © Björn Horgby 2024