The Neoliberalization of Football

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Sociology of Sport
International Review for the
DOI: 10.1177/1012690210362426
2010; 45; 123 International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Sam Dubal
commercialization of the beautiful game
The neoliberalization of football: Rethinking neoliberalism through the
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The neoliberalization
of football: Rethinking
neoliberalism through the
commercialization of the
beautiful game
Sam Dubal
Harvard Medical School, USA
Abstract
This ethnographic study explores how football (soccer) fandoms respond to neoliberal reforms,
adding to a growing debate on the nature of neoliberalism by scholars such as geographer David
Harvey, sociologist Nikolas Rose, and anthropologist Anna Tsing. In order to critique spatially and
temporally coherent characterizations of neoliberalism, brief case analyses of fan reactions to the
commercialization of Brazilian club Corinthians and English club Manchester United are used.
Specifically, comparative insights from fans negotiation of market-based restructurings reveal how
neoliberal flows are implemented and experienced differently in different places. Particularities
in these flows are employed to disassemble hegemonic and universal visions of neoliberalism
through the notion of friction.
Keywords
citizenship, commodification, consumption, football, neoliberalism
Introduction
Anthropological understandings of neoliberalism
Neoliberalism, for scholars such as David Harvey, is a global hegemonic doctrine, capa-
ble of enacting homogenizing structural change through deregulation, privatization, and
other recognizable transformations. Originating as a theory of political thought empha-
sizing freedom, neoliberalism has developed into a mode of governance that shifts
social responsibility from the state to individual, corporate, and NGO actors. Marked by
protection of property rights, the growth of free markets, and the cutback of the welfare
state, among other reforms, neoliberalism emerged during a period of stagflation in the
Article
Corresponding author:
Sam Dubal, Harvard Medical School, 260 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA
Email: sam_dubal@hms.harvard.edu, sambdubal@gmail.com
International Review for the
Sociology of Sport
45(2) 123146
The Author(s) 2010
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124 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 45(2)
1970s as a possible solution to recessions and energy crises (Harvey, 2005). It has since
expanded globally to reshape everyday values and to govern conduct in diverse fields,
including popular culture and sport.
Harveys theory is widely cited and useful in conceptualizing an intricate set of transfor-
mations, ideologies, and modes of governance, yet it has its limits. Through anthropologi-
cal ethnographic fieldwork, I critique the politico-economic determinism of neoliberalism
that he offers. Harvey (2005) describes neoliberalism as being hegemonic as a mode of
discourse (p. 3), claiming that there has everywhere been an emphatic turn towards neo-
liberalism in political-economic practices and thinking (p. 2). He explicitly defines neolib-
eralization as a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and
to restore the power of economic elites, orchestrated by ruling upper classes (p. 19).
Explaining a global presence of neoliberal governance, he argues, The general progress of
neoliberalization has . . . been increasingly impelled through mechanisms of uneven geo-
graphical development. Successful states or regions put pressure on everyone else to follow
their lead (p. 87). While the flow of neoliberal thought and policies undoubtedly includes
elite actors and transcends national boundaries, treating neoliberalism as an encompassing
hegemonic project ascribes remarkable and perhaps undeserving spatial and temporal
coherence to this transnational phenomenon (Hoffman et al., 2006).
Recognizing the limits of Harveys rigid understanding of neoliberalism, we must
ask, as we did of globalization, how these neoliberal flows are implemented and expe-
rienced differently in different places. Beyond demonstrating its local specificities, we
must place neoliberalism itself at the center of our studies. Hoffman et al. (2006) note
that although ever more anthropological studies are concerned with neoliberalism, there
have been few steps made toward an anthropology of neoliberalism . . . in which the very
definition of neoliberalism is put in question and made an object of investigation (p. 9).
Through this ethnographic study of what I term the neoliberalization of football (soc-
cer), I seek to refine our definition of neoliberalism by examining how seemingly identi-
cal processes transforming the game are implemented and experienced differently in
Brazil and England. By examining football fans reactions to the implementation of mar-
ket-driven governance, it becomes clear that neoliberalization, like globalization, does
not homogenize the world into a singular neoliberal society, nor do neoliberal flows
traverse national borders freely. Rather, neoliberal governing principles are included and
excluded, embraced and negotiated across local landscapes, originating through specific
actors and taking shape through different mechanisms. It is within this negotiation, or
friction, that a culture of neoliberalism develops. In combining studies of sport and of
neoliberalism, I use comparative ethnographic insights to suggest a reinterpretation of
neoliberalism. I collected my observations from June to August 2007, when I spent time
in So Paulo and Manchester surveying and interviewing (in semi-structured, taped
interviews) approximately 80, mostly young to middle-aged male fans of Corinthians
and Manchester United/FC United. The work was undertaken with the permission of the
management of both Gavies da Fiel (Corinthians primary supporter club) and FC
United, and most informants were tied to these organizations as members. Work in So
Paulo was coordinated primarily at the Gavies da Fiel community center in the district
of Bom Retiro, while work in Manchester was coordinated both electronically through
fans forums and personally at FC matches. The methods were executed with the aim of
Dubal 125
including a diverse yet dedicated group of supporters within the sample. Accompanying
fans to matches, protests, pubs, and organizational meetings all rich zones of social
production I gained a sense of the political struggles facing fans today and the various
ways in which they respond. Although direct engagement with club management and
players was considered, such data would not significantly affect the supporters opinions
and perceptions of their lived realities. Future ethnographic work is needed to understand
the positioning of these other crucial actors within this web of power.
I preface my argument with two qualifying notes. First, the two cases were chosen on
the basis of their high-profile takeovers marked by publicized, strong opposition within
vastly different politico-economic and cultural circumstances. Other cases, including
Chelsea, Liverpool, and Aston Villa, were considered, but supporters opposition to these
takeovers was not as manifest as those of Manchester United/FC United and Corinthians.
While these cases may not be representative of broader supporter responses to the com-
mercialization of the sport, they serve as illustrative examples to advance a more nuanced
theoretical understanding of the concept and practice of neoliberalism. Of course, fans
experiences of and attitudes towards neoliberalization differ widely, even within these
two cases. Many embrace the games neoliberalization, while others detest it; in my
accounts, I compare particular sets of fans experiences in Brazil and England as a way
of re-examining the nature of neoliberalism. Second, to the extent that fans organize into
communities around politico-economic and social issues, fandom is also highly gen-
dered and strongly associated with constructions and performances of masculinities
(Giulianotti, 1999). While women do participate actively in fan organizations, these
groups are largely dominated by men.
The commercialization of football
What is widely recognized as the commercialization of world football at the elite pro-
fessional level is one aspect of what I term the neoliberalization of football the post-
1970s infusion of a loose set of market-driven ideals that have pushed profit-making to
the foreground of the global game, affecting fans and fan culture from So Paulo to
Manchester, from Tokyo to Moscow. Marked most recently by a string of high-profile
takeovers of local clubs including Russian oil magnate Roman Abramovichs takeover
of Chelsea, Media Sports Investments purchase of Corinthians, and American investor
Malcolm Glazers takeover of Manchester United the commercialization of football, as
journalist David Conn (1997) reminds us, is in fact nothing new. For example, as early
as the 1880s, English clubs had been illegally paying players at a time when the sport
was still amateur. What is unique about the current era of commercialization is its dra-
matic impact on fans and fan culture.
The effects of modern commercialization have markedly transformed global fans-
capes. Facing rising ticket prices, many fans in both England and Brazil have stopped
attending matches. As a result, many stadia (especially in England) have been gentrified,
replacing the traditional fan-base of mainly working-class supporters with a largely mid-
dle- and upper-class group. Recent technologies such as satellite television have made it
possible to watch English games in almost every country, expanding the fan-bases of
elite English clubs to include millions from around the world and increasing club profits
through pay-per-view TV revenue. Many fans in both England and Brazil feel alienated
from their clubs now wealthy players while perceiving their own transformation from
supporters into consumers. In this transformation, traditional supporters clash with newer
supporters, who ascribe different meanings to their fandom.
While many fans have been disenfranchised and disaffected by the recent commer-
cialization of football, others have had different experiences. Fans of Chelsea, for exam-
ple, have enjoyed an upturn in their clubs fortunes, and many fans praise Abramovich
for improving their league position. Others, especially fans based abroad, have not felt
the full effects of commercialization, unaffected by rises in ticket prices or the decline in
the quality of the match atmosphere. Most have also not experienced corporate takeovers
firsthand; fans of elite German clubs own at least 51 percent of their teams, while fans of
many Spanish clubs, including FC Barcelona (a club widely seen as a democratic model
by many Corinthians and FC United fans), fully own their teams. Further studies are
needed to learn how these fans understand the recent commodification of the sport.
Beyond commercialization: The neoliberalization of football
Many scholars have studied this recent form of the commercialization of football in vari-
ous forms (Brown, 1998; Conn, 1997; King, 2003; Lee, 1998; Morrow, 2003; Sandvoss,
2003). Yet commercialization has not yet been explicitly considered as part of the broader
project of neoliberalism. Table 1 gives a useful comparison that identifies the ways in
which aspects of commercialization are linked to larger neoliberal processes.
Table 1 reveals that the commercialization of football is not an isolated phenomenon,
but in fact an extension of neoliberal governance into the arena of sport. Like political
neoliberalism, football neoliberalism arose out of crisis. In England, following the
1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster and out of a genuine concern for the safety of fans,
the Home Office dictated that all English stadia were to be converted into all-seaters,
eliminating the standing terraces popular with generations of fans and leading to
increased ticket prices. Perhaps unintentionally, these changes allowed the public ritual
of football to be transformed into a profitable business, climaxing in the formation of the
breakaway English Premier League a collusion of profit-seeking club chairmen and TV
executives, aided by English footballs governing body, the Football Association, or FA
(Conn, 1997). In Brazil, on the other hand, changes in the game arose out of a desire to
professionalize the financial administration of clubs, which was, and continues to be,
rife with corruption (Gordon and Helal, 2001). As a result of these changes, originally
aimed to root out fraud and stabilize club finances, ticket prices keep increasing in
Brazilian stadia, even as attendances fall. Clubs remain in debt, forced to cheaply sell
their best young players off to Europe to service their balance, or, in the case of
Corinthians, enter into often dangerous partnerships with foreign investors.
How did the English Football Association and its Brazilian counterpart, the CBF
footballs equivalents of the state respond to these crises? The English FA adopted a
neoliberal method of governing without governing by promoting market solutions as an
alternative mode of governance. The English FA allowed clubs to bypass Rule 34, which
precluded profit-making by banning payments to club directors and previously discour-
aged investors from exploiting the game (Conn, 1997). Clubs were free to float on the
Dubal 127
stock market, beginning with Tottenham in 1983, and profits soon began to flow in
(King, 2003). The CBF, on the other hand, was united in its opposition to Peles Law, a
proposal by the famous footballer (and then Minister of Sport) Pel during the adminis-
tration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who led a privatization program in Brazil in the
mid-1990s. The law allowed clubs to create their own league as a private legal entity
outside the CBFs jurisdiction, in addition to allowing clubs to become corporations
(Castro, 2002). Pels Law was, as Franklin Foer (2004) describes, a set of IMF-like
reforms for soccer, requiring clubs to operate as transparent capitalist ventures, with
open books and accountable managers (p. 127). Clubs vehemently opposed the legisla-
tion, which also gave players greater labor mobility, contributing to the exodus of young
players and the alienation of fans from players (Sader, 2004). Investors such as Media
Sports Investment (MSI) soon began to enter Brazilian football.
In this neoliberalization of football, clubs traditionally imagined by fans as belong-
ing to communities rather than individual owners were privatized. Historically, clubs
were first formed by groups of university students, professionals, and workers, among
others not by individuals or businessmen (Mason, 1980, 1995). The word club signi-
fied a form of social inclusion of its members and fans (and the implicit exclusion of
others). As historian Tony Mason (1980) notes, English clubs contributed to the inten-
sity and diffusion of [a] local consciousness . . . particularly among working people,
where workers helped to feel that they belonged to a community by the activities of the
local football team and their attachment to that team (p. 235). In Brazil, many clubs were
Table 1. Neoliberalism in football and politics from the 1970s to the present
Neoliberal football Neoliberal politics
Originated in response to domestic football
crises (hooliganism and crowd control in
England in the 1980s; club debts and
mismanagement in Brazil in the 1990s)
Originated in response to economic stagflation
and other crises from the 1970s to the 1990s
English Football Association and Brazilian
government changed rules to allow clubs to
become profit-oriented businesses
Brazilian and British politicians changed laws to
allow for the privatization of national industries
Teams belong to the fans, who feel a sense of
public ownership over them
A nations public transportation, mineral
resources, and other industries belong to the
public
Teams are sold off to the highest bidder,
transferring (usually) from local fans to global
investors
National industries are sold off to the highest
bidder, transferring from public to private
ownership
Fan groups organize to protest the clubs sale Citizens organize to protest the sale of national
industries
Fans interests ignored in favor of private
accumulation
Citizens interests ignored in favor of private
accumulation
G14 and the Clube dos 13, groups of the
worlds richest clubs, lobby to promote
market interests and increased club profits
G8, a group of the worlds richest countries,
lobby to promote market interests
(and continue as) elite athletic clubs (Damo, 2002), but are nonetheless societies with
available access to membership. Those who could not afford or did not want to be club
members began to form independent fan communities in the 1940s (Mason, 1995).
Questions of membership, inclusion, and class, as well as claims to possession over the
club, are re-emerging as new problems in todays form of commercialized football.
In the privatization of elite teams, club ownership has been transferred from inclu-
sive fan communities to exclusive wealthy businessmen. There is no doubt that in earlier
periods, club chairmen in both Brazil and England sought to increase their capital but
for them, as Bourdieu (1984) would point out, capital was not always a matter of money.
Conn notes that directors spoke of their job as custodians of the club for the people,
and almost none saw football as a means of making money (Conn, 1997: 1289). Often,
chairmen gained cultural capital from their positions, enhancing their images within their
communities. Similarly, in Brazil, while many chairmen profited from their clubs finan-
cially (legally or illegally), being a chairman also became a springboard for launching
political careers (Humphrey, 1994). Owners were generally also fans, recognizing that
clubs belonged to the fans, who paid the players wages and sustained the club finan-
cially. During the course of the games neoliberalization, this tacit understanding of the
public ownership of football often collapsed. During Malcolm Glazers takeover of
Manchester United, even fans holding merely sentimental shares in the club were forced
to sell to Glazer, who assumed total control of the club. While never formally public,
football clubs always assumed the shape of public institutions; however, like many
national industries in the UK and Brazil, they have recently fallen into private hands.
Once investors saw market potential in football, the fallout predictably mirrored the
condition of neoliberal intervention. Teams worldwide have been sold off to the highest
bidders, reflecting the sale of Brazilian and British national industries. Many fans citi-
zens of their clubs have protested against selective takeovers as many citizens have
organized against privatization. In the new governance of football, many supporters feel
that private accumulation is given precedence over fan interests, just as neoliberal initia-
tives, especially in the UK, are instituting the rollback of welfare programs and social
spending. Unions of elite clubs, including the Brazilian Clube dos 13 (Club of Thirteen)
and the recently disbanded European G14, promote market interests in order to secure
increased profits; they were clearly modeled on the G8, the group of the worlds richest
countries and leading proponents of political projects such as trade liberalization.
There can be no question that neoliberal projects have significantly altered the land-
scape of world football. By examining the ethnographic cases of two clubs recently taken
over by foreign investors Corinthians and Manchester United we can witness how
seemingly identical neoliberal transformations have been implemented, experienced, and
negotiated in two regions with starkly different political, economic, and cultural histories.
Through this comparative approach, we put neoliberalism at the heart of our inquiry in
order to cultivate a more nuanced knowledge of its limits, variations, and inconsistencies.
Corinthians, Gavies da Fiel, and the Movimento Fora Dualib
On a scorching July day in South Americas largest city, Corinthians have forgotten how
to play football. Unimpressed with their teams 30 loss at home to the leagues worst
Dubal 129
team Nutico, irate fans begin chanting, Oh-ohh-oh, Dualib the thief out! (O,ooo,o,
fora Dualib ladro!), urging Corinthians president Alberto Dualib to resign. Whistles
and boos rain down on the players from the upper reaches of the stadium.
After leaving the stands, we head for Dualibs house, meeting about 10 other cars in a
nearby square. Julio, a teenage member of the movement against Dualib, buys 200 eggs at
a nearby market. The other drivers, angry and impatient, rush ahead of us while organizer
Bruno calls members of the press to inform them of the impending protest. We pull up
towards the house and watch as fans launch firecrackers over the homes tall stone wall in
this wealthy neighborhood. Julio rushes the eggs out to the 200 fans present, and as Dualibs
bemused security guards look on, they throw them angrily at the house while screaming:
The peace is over your life will become hell! (Acabou a paz, a sua vida vai
virar um inferno!)
No, its not easy to take Ive never seen security for a thief! (No mole, no!
Eu nunca vi segurana para ladro!)
Dualib, fuck off! Corinthians doesnt need you! (O Dualib, vai se fuder! O
Coringo no precisa de voc!)
No, its not easy to take Dualib sold Corinthians! (No mole, no! O Dualib
vendeu o Coringo!)
As media and police arrive, the protests continue, and the pressure on Dualib grows.
Dualib sold Corinthians!: The MSI-Corinthians partnership and fan resistance
In December 2004, Corinthians board announced a 10-year partnership with MSI, an
unknown investment firm led by Kia Joorabchian and Boris Berezovsky (Bellos, 2004).
In return for complete control of the clubs football operations, MSI promised US$35
million to invest in players and to finance Corinthians enormous debt, which had risen
to upwards of US$20 million under President Alberto Dualibs administration. Although
many fans and Corinthians board members initially opposed MSIs takeover, their voices
were ignored following the arrival of several star players, including Argentineans Carlos
Tevez and Javier Mascherano. The MSI-financed team bore fruit in 2005, winning the
Brazilian championship.
Soon after, however, the partnership began to break down. Dualib and Joorabchian
clashed, and Joorabchian took Tevez and Mascherano to England, hoping to sell them on
for a profit. In July 2007, Berezovsky, Joorabchian, and Dualib were all indicted on
charges of money laundering and gang formation, and Corinthians board voted to termi-
nate the partnership. Under pressure from fans, including members of independent sup-
porter groups (torcidas organizadas) Gavies da Fiel (Hawks of the Faithful) and the
Movimento Fora Dualib (Dualib Out Movement), Dualib and his administration
resigned, leaving the club in even further debt. Amidst this political turmoil, the team
finished 17th in the league and were relegated in December 2007. Although divided over
MSI, fans were nearly united in opposition to Dualib. In addition to selling the team to
MSI, Dualib was deeply implicated in nepotism, corruption, unjustly changing club by-
laws, and buying votes, allowing him to remain in power for 14 years (Vlez and Garcia,
2006). In spite of the many trophies won under Dualibs administration, ethnographic
work confirms that fans widely regard him as a thief, a dictator, and a self-interested
businessman who stained their team.
Neoliberal intervention and the fans alienation from players and management
Today, football has become less about working with society, the question of being human, and
is more commercial. Today, the commercial part is more prosperous than the love, the passion
of the fan. With this commercialization, this globalization thats taking [Brazilian] players
abroad, you end up losing a bit of the character of football for the fan. (Renato, member of
Gavies da Fiel and Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra [MST], a Brazilian
landless workers movement)
The MSI partnership was merely the latest episode in a series of neoliberal initiatives in
Brazilian football that are distancing many fans from players and management, turning,
as many supporters see it, fans into consumers and players into commodities. In the
aftermath of Peles Law, and the transformation of clubs into for-profit corporations,
ticket prices have increased to more than $11 (R$20), making attendance at games unaf-
fordable for most working-class fans who have traditionally supported Corinthians.
Clubs profits increasingly come from TV revenues as Corinthians games are broadcast
across Brazil and occasionally abroad. The fan who goes to the stadium isnt worth
anything anymore, remarks Marcelo, a member of Gavies in his mid-30s. The clubs
sell their anticipated TV quotas, so its more important for a clubs games to be on TV
than to have 40, 50,000 fans inside the stadium.
Although Corinthians remains a widely supported club with nearly 30 million fans,
the clubs commercialization is increasingly transforming many fans passion for the
club into a consumer desire. Renato notes, Today, all fans are actually seen by the teams,
the businesses, as consumers. They dont care about our sentiment of love, of passion, of
guts. Many fans imagine their consumption of Corinthians (through tickets, merchan-
dise, and so forth) not as a consumer desire but as an expression of their passion and love
for their team, identifying with a complex philosophy and common history of suffering
known as Corinthianismo. While fans have not traditionally seen themselves as consum-
ers, marketing directors now do and profit from what could be seen as blind brand loy-
alty. In the midst of this recent reconfiguration of fans as consumers, Renato and others
warn that commercialization is diminishing the fans love for the game, and with this
passion going away, the fan will also stop consuming. Recent changes in Corinthians
fans attitudes towards consumption, as discussed later, suggest an alternative future.
While fans passion or love for Corinthians is often displaced by commercial or busi-
ness interests running the game, it is also increasingly seen to be disregarded by players
with whom fans once strongly identified. Renato describes a commonly held nostalgia
for players from the past:
The Brazilian still dreams of . . . the player who plays for the love, not for the money . . . Today,
you see a player who plays for your arch-rivals for six months, and then six months later, hes
Dubal 131
playing for your team. So, the commercial part of football is taking away the emotional part a
little . . . You see the fan a bit more distant than before.
Seen by many fans as mercenaries, players often find it difficult to establish a sense of
loyalty to the team or fans, who in turn become alienated from them. While players are
perhaps partly to blame, this phenomenon must be situated within the greater football
world order in which talented teenage Brazilian players are sold abroad, migrating
towards larger European salaries while servicing the debts of their clubs (an important
topic that I will revisit). Combined with managements perceived treatment of fans as
consumers, the alienation from players contributes to fans diminishing passion and
sense of identity amidst current neoliberal intervention in football.
Gavies da Fiel: Asserting control over club and community
As my ethnographic data suggest, as fans grow distant from players and club manage-
ment, they dedicate much of their time to fan movements and independent supporter
organizations (torcidas organizadas). These groups have been described by fans them-
selves as social movements or fan unions. As an element of Adam Browns (1998)
notion of fan democracy, they may be seen as a means by which fans assert control
over the club, identifying with the passion and sense of community that have been
diminished by neoliberal initiatives. As community organizations with characteristics of
NGOs, they take up projects to provide social support that the club and the state have
failed to offer.
Gavies da Fiel, Brazils largest torcida organizada with over 70,000 members, is
one of these organizations. Born to retake power from corrupt administrators, the group
organizes protests to ensure that the club is administered clearly and honestly while dedi-
cating itself to fan interests. For example, Gavies has pressured the club to lower ticket
prices and to provide more sanitary stadium facilities. Outside of football, the group
coordinates a variety of community activities, including a samba school, feijoada (a
common Brazilian meal) gatherings, childrens classes, and coat and food drives for a
nearby favela. Many fans describe these community projects in direct opposition to the
failures of state-provided services. Like most members of Gavies, Adriano is dissatis-
fied with and wary of the government:
The great majority of the people that come here [to Gavies] are from the lower class, poor, right?
[Community work] is something that we like to do because we like society. The government
doesnt do anything for society, because for them . . . the less information a Brazilian citizen
has, the better.
This deep distrust of corrupt government extends into action with a core group of mem-
bers who are also activists with MST. During a recent Gavies administration, the groups
leaders officially supported MST and the cause of the Cuban and Bolivian people while
also condemning the Brazilian troop presence in Haiti and the war in Iraq (Ligabue,
2005). Rafael, a fan in his early 30s, insinuates that these actions on the part of a football
fan organization reflect the strong sense of family that fans feel for each other, rooted
in injustices suffered at the hands of a negligent state:
Our social character is a consequence of the injustices that we see and suffer from. We dont
receive anything from the state or any other organization, we make our social role . . . were a
different torcida, concerned with the socio-political life of our country. Our organization has
the objective of uniting all members of, all admirers of Sport Club Corinthians Paulista in a
single chain, transforming this passion into a big family.
Transforming the passion they feel for their club into a heightened sense of community,
fans participate in social work to protect the imagined community that the state does not.
Citizens of Brazil or citizens of Corinthians? Fans understandings
of neoliberal politics
Members of Gavies, as citizens of both the Brazilian state and of the imagined
Corinthians nation, are uniquely positioned to see the implementation and repercussions
of deregulation and privatization in state government and in football. Many politicized
fans understand neoliberal governance in the two arenas as identical. In their eyes,
Dualibs sale of Corinthians to MSI mirrored Fernando Henrique Cardosos sale of vari-
ous national industries to private companies in the mid-1990s:
Dualib we say that hes Fernando Henrique, he accepts these privatizations, this neoliberalism.
So much that he tried to . . . privatize Corinthians. (Renato)
It was a privatization that happened in [the MSI] partnership, as it happened in the FHC
government, where all of the evils were attributed to the acts of the state and virtues to private
initiative. (Rafael)
Other less politicized fans claim no interest in politics, but nonetheless, Renato claims,
gain a political awareness of neoliberalism through football:
The people trade [their] political responsibility for football. Whatever political scandal [arises]
if theres a football match, the guy isnt into [the scandal] . . . he says, Oh, Brazil is just like
that. So we try to change this path . . . we believe that through football, someone can also gain
a political awareness even if hes traded social responsibility for football. Even through
football he can fight for his normal everyday life as a citizen.
In other words, fans understandings of national neoliberal politics are informed by their
experiences as citizens of the Corinthians nation, and vice versa. Alienated from the
neoliberal Brazilian state, fans often jeer the national anthem before match kickoffs,
identifying as Corinthian citizens rather than Brazilian citizens.
In fact, fans see Gavies, whose members come from many socio-economic classes,
as a haven where they are treated as equals and their social worth is recognized some-
thing fans are unable to find as Brazilian citizens. Rafael describes the distinction
between being a citizen of Gavies and a citizen of Brazil:
Dubal 133
Theres a phrase that really sums up what a person discriminated by the state feels about being
in the middle of the Fiel Torcida that can be put as a response to this question: Is the Corinthians
torcida the biggest? Is it the best? I dont know, Ive never counted. Its different, Im sure of
that. What I also know is that even today I only find one of mans most chased-after dreams in
the middle of the Corinthians torcida. Its equality.
Accordingly, the group particularly appeals to poor young men who are ignored by a
state that cannot afford them education, transportation, or employment. Rafael
remarks, [Gavies] carries out a duty that should be the states, creating an environ-
ment in which the young person of low-income feels like a citizen, while for the gov-
ernment he is just one more. Along with providing this sense of human worth
associated with being a citizen, Gavies also helps many fans understand themselves
as political citizens. Paulo, a member of Gavies and MST, remarks, Today, I con-
sider myself a politicized critic and mobilized citizen socially, thanks to life learning
within Gavies. While a Marxist analysis might approach sport as a capitalist tool, a
form of superstructure distracting fans from realizing their class relations, the reality
seems quite different for many fans. Through their education as citizens of the
Corinthians Nation, fans gain political awareness of neoliberalism while actively
seeking recognition of their equality and self-worth denied to them by the Brazilian
state. Of course, these responses to a worldwide trend towards a neoliberal governance
of football are specific to the conditions of Brazil and the megacity of So Paulo. How
many of these similar projects are implemented and negotiated in Manchester a
wealthier city of the global North among a group of Manchester United fans, is a
different matter that demonstrates the need for a more nuanced understanding of neo-
liberalism grounded in the idea of friction.
Manchester United and FC United
Manchester United vs Spurs
Passing Love United, Hate Glazer stickers around the ground, I make my way to the
front of Old Trafford, where on this warm August afternoon, United host Spurs. The
Megastore, Uniteds official merchandise store, is teeming with fans carrying their
purchases. As I walk toward the South Stand, I encounter a group of teenage girls in
cocktail dresses heading to the luxurious corporate hospitality suites. At the rear of
the 75,000-capacity stadium, the United team bus pulls up closely to the players
entrance, which the stars pass through without acknowledging the adoring fans gath-
ered to greet them.
I make my way to my 38 assigned seat. As kickoff looms and the stadium fills,
the Stretford End raises its voices. Two or three supporters in the South Stand where
I sit try to join in the singing, including a middle-class 10-year-old boy. His mother
scolds him, hushing him up to conform to the quietness of his section, which sits in
silence. At halftime, with the score 00, I glance through the United Review pro-
gram, sponsored by Nike, AIG, Air Asia, and Budweiser, a genuine supporter of
Manchester United, among other transnational corporations. United play poorly but
win 10.
FC United vs Kidderminster
A month earlier, I traveled to Kidderminster to see my first FC United game. I met some
FC fans on the train and joined them in the pub. At the small ground, we paid our 10
general admission tickets at the gate. The days attendance was 676, around 160 of whom
were FC fans. There were neither fans in suits nor in dresses, and there was no shop to
be found. Here we stood the entire game, sitting only briefly at halftime. FC songs
boomed freely through the terrace, including some criticizing new Manchester United
owner Malcolm Glazer and defender Rio Ferdinand:
Glazer, wherever you may be you bought Old Trafford but you cant buy me! I
signed not for sale and I meant just that! You cant buy me, you greedy twat!
We dont care about Rio! He dont care about me! All I care about is watching
FC! [Ferdinand was engaged in a notorious struggle to raise his already enor-
mous wages, alienating fans who believe he is overpaid]
In this preseason friendly, FC managed a 11 draw with Kidderminster, a team two divi-
sions above them. At fulltime, the players came over to the away stand to applaud the
fans who traveled 75 miles to support them.
Not for $al: The Glazer takeover and fan resistance
On 12 May 2005, American Malcolm Glazer bought one of the worlds richest clubs,
Manchester United, for about 790 million. Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
and a businessman holding diverse investments, took the club off the stock market and
plunged a previously rich United into approximately 525 million of debt. While some
fans were unconcerned with or supported the Glazer takeover, many vehemently opposed
it. Led by the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMUSA), fans
organized protests and encouraged boycotts of Uniteds sponsors. A group of deeply
disenchanted and disenfranchised supporters (FC United of Manchester, 2008), many
affiliated with IMUSA, refused to renew their season tickets and formed their own mem-
bers-owned club, Football Club United of Manchester, or FC United. FC is a semi-pro-
fessional team that currently plays six divisions below Manchester United, averaging an
attendance of nearly 3000 supporters.
For many FC fans, Glazers takeover was merely the latest event in the transforma-
tion of Manchester United Football Club into Manchester United plc. Glazers was
not the first takeover attempt; chairman Martin Edwards attracted bids in the late 1980s
(Conn, 1997) as well as the late 1990s, in between which he publicly floated the club
while increasing ticket prices. The eventual takeover forced many fans holding signifi-
cant and/or sentimental shares to sell them to Glazer. Combined with higher ticket
prices, increased policing, the gentrification of football supporters, and the clubs glo-
balization, the takeover ended many fans patience with the commercialization of the
game. Not participating in these protests, other fans still pack Old Trafford every week
to watch the 200809 English champions.
Dubal 135
From fan to consumer: The gentrification of Manchester United
With Uniteds emergence as one of the worlds richest and most popular football clubs,
many fans see themselves transformed from football supporters of Manchester United
Football Club into consumers of the Manchester United brand. Within this perceived
transformation, what was seen as a traditionally working-class fan-base has been gentri-
fied with a greater proportion of middle- and upper-class consumers, often via increased
ticket prices. Once below a single pound, prices have soared since the establishment of
the Premier League to around $60$80 (3040); since Glazer arrived, ticket prices
have risen 11 percent per season (Conn, 2008). Unable or unwilling to pay these rising
costs, many fans have been forced to give up their season tickets, which had often been
held for decades within their families. Nigel, an FC fan in his late 30s who used to be a
regular at United, explains Uniteds marketing strategy:
They dont want just the average working-class man. They want people who will spend 150
pounds. Theyll have a meal, theyll buy a bit of merchandise, theyll take their clients. Football
fans arent wanted anymore not unless theyre very rich football fans and they can afford to
give as much money as the corporates can.
While Manchester United is no longer a place where working-class fans can enjoy football
at an affordable price, it is now a place where middle-class fans consume football. The sign-
value of the club, a means by which fans identify themselves in particular ways (King,
2003), has accordingly changed with the introduction of a mainly middle-class fan-base.
The club has consciously re-signified itself as a fashionable, cosmopolitan brand through
modifications such as removing the words Football Club from the club crest. Creating this
image was particularly important in attracting a new class of fans. As the crowds at Old
Trafford and the Megastore suggest, consumption of the brand has its pleasures and passions
for most of this new fan generation, who unlike previous generations are more likely to
assert their fandom through the purchase of merchandise. A new middle-class habitus occu-
pies the stadium: the removal of terraces, an increased security presence, and a general
improvement of facilities in response to organized violence and difficulties with crowd con-
trol has eased lingering (and mainly middle-class) fears over physical safety at matches.
For many working-class and/or older generations of fans, however, the introduction
of this middle-class habitus has resulted in a decline in the quality of match atmospheres,
now often described as sanitized. Thomas, a fan in his mid-40s who used to watch
United before going to FC, remarks:
Middle classes when youre next to one, and you started singing, theyll look at you as though
youre stupid. And if youre surrounded by them, you wont sing. Which is sad really thats
whats ruined the sport.
Many of those who do choose to sing while standing a practice that was ubiquitous in
the 1970s and 1980s and is still common when United play away feel that they are
forced to sit down by an aggressive police presence. After United manager Sir Alex
Ferguson criticized the lack of atmosphere, an IMUSA representative hit back, likening
the stadium to a police state where those who stand are ejected (Kay, 2008).
Gentrification thus takes place both through the market and through policing.
Neoliberal reform and local supporters alienation from global players
In addition to being priced out, traditional local fans have witnessed an enormous influx
of wealth and talented foreign players in recent years. To a certain extent, the clubs suc-
cess delights most supporters, who regularly enjoy watching the worlds best players
from Brazil to Korea. Yet the benefits of Uniteds wealthy squad and worldwide fame are
sometimes overshadowed by the deepening sense of alienation that traditional local
fans feel. Unable to identify with multimillionaire players and limited in their dreams of
ever playing for their local team, many local fans can no longer identify with the club.
Like most players in the Premier League, United players are seen by many FC fans to
be overpaid, earning upwards of $200,000 (100,000) a week. FC fan Jonathan, who
remembers his encounter with a legendary United player in the 1960s, contrasts current
players with those from the past:
You saw them getting on a bus. The same bus as the fans, going home. Nobby Stiles was stood
signing an autograph for me, and his dad would say, Come on Nobby, well miss this bus. And
you wouldnt get that now. Just, go away little boy, it would be that kind of attitude. And thats
how its moved away from the fans.
Many fans are also hesitant about the influx of foreign players. Although it would be easy
to dismiss their misgivings as xenophobia, to do so would ignore the reality that local
youth today, have little chance of playing for United
1
(or any other Premier League
team). Brian, a socialist FC fan in his late 30s, says:
I think there should be a cap on the amount of players that come from abroad. For me, its about
giving the lad from Salford a genuine chance, when hes 11 or 12, this could be you, you
know? But now . . . theres not a 0.1% chance of you making it.
Players high wages and the abundance of foreign players are perceived to dislocate
United from Manchester, pulling the club apart from its local community roots and iso-
lating its traditional fans.
Asserting control over club and community: Fan ownership and FC United
In contrast to Manchester United, fan-owned FC United, a non-profit Industrial and
Provident Society operated for the benefit of the community (Financial Services
Authority, n.d.), avoids commercialization whenever possible, electing not to carry spon-
sors on their shirts. Reacting to the commercialization and globalization of United, FC
also formed as a way for fans to recreate traditional practices they once enjoyed at United:
standing with friends, singing, interacting with players,
2
and counting on regular Saturday
3 pm kickoffs. Yet FC is also something novel part of a new movement towards a fan
Dubal 137
democracy. Each fan is an owner and votes at the clubs annual general meeting; the
clubs board is democratically elected. As part of a larger network of small, supporter-
owned English clubs, FC provides a chance for fans to reclaim control over their game.
Among FCs primary aims is to become involved in local community sport and other
forms of social assistance, directly addressing the lack of social responsibility assumed
by Manchester United and the state. In the eyes of many FC fans, Manchester United has
become dis-united from Manchester. Anthony, an FC fan who had been going to United
since the 1960s, argues, All football clubs should have its roots . . . theyre not Coca
Cola. Theyre not McDonalds. And they should be treated as an integral part of society
and an integral part of the community. United, rather than promoting ties with the com-
munity, has grown increasingly distant from fans in Salford and other parts of Greater
Manchester. Though United participates in various charity events and community proj-
ects, most fans feel that these are token gestures used to enhance Uniteds image. FCs
projects, on the other hand, are seen by many supporters to genuinely aim at social inclu-
sion, responding to the states unwillingness to provide welfare support to immigrants
and the working class as wealth gaps in the country increase. Kelly, one of many women
who support FC, remarks, I like the idea of being involved with young people at risk of
offending . . . [of] building up social cohesion locally of football clubs that have been
traditionally in quite run-down areas that need a lot of support. Standing in contrast to
the global, expensive, and regulated Manchester United, FC directly addresses many of
the local cultural and leisure voids that the neoliberal state has left to private enterprise.
Football as a right: Fans understandings of neoliberal politics
Its like privatization of something that everybody should have. Fans shouldnt be exploited to
pay to give a businessman a rich profit . . . Football should be affordable to everybody, just like
water should be there for everybody. (Nigel)
Like Corinthians fans, many FC fans understanding of neoliberal politics is informed by
the neoliberalization of football, and vice versa. For many fans, as Nigel notes, football
is like water a basic right that everyone should have access to at an affordable price. Yet
when football is taken away through increased prices and private ownership of such a
public local institution as United, fans often connect the dots between commercializa-
tion and privatization. Trevor, a university student and FC fan in his early 20s, compares
the privatization of buses to Glazers purchase of United:
It seems really strange that buses should be run by private companies . . . and that people who
use the bus should have to pay for it. Surely it should be paid by progressive taxes and then it
should be free . . . It just seems like a right has been taken away from you. And that seems the
same with the takeover . . . I know that it never was strictly my club, but it felt like it was. And
now it doesnt feel like it is.
While never publicly owned, United grew as a city institution that belonged to the
Mancunian people and constituted part of their identity.
For many FC fans, Glazers purchase of the club shattered that sense of Uniteds
public identity, disregarding social welfare just as Thatcher did. Comparing Glazer
and Thatcher, Trevor remarks, Well, both sort of neoliberals arent they? I think
Thatcher said, theres no such thing as society. And thats what Glazer has implied
about United its just a business, that there isnt a community behind the club. Brian
recognizes Thatchers philosophy on private enterprise as the underpinning for Premier
League football. What happened in football, I think, is the result of Margaret
Thatchers policies. She just spread this culture where people lost their sense of com-
munity. Were not in a community anymore, were in it for ourselves. On the other
hand, many fans are politically apathetic, indifferent to the legacies of Thatcherism.
Yet, as Nigel points out, simply following United leads fans to understand neoliberal
business practices:
Fans are a lot more clued up about things like business than they were 10 years ago, because
weve had it rammed down our throats for so long by Man United. We are a brand, we are a
product. The fans have now taken an interest in, What is a brand? What is a product? What is
profit? And now fans are beginning to understand looking at it well hang on, 660 million
pounds in debt? Whos paying this debt off? And then theyre looking further into it, and you
find out that its Man United supporters who are paying for it.
From politicized Militants identifying with FC as a leftist rebel club to politically uncon-
cerned fans simply wanting the company of affordable beer, football, and friends, FC
fans come to understand neoliberalism through both politics and football.
Neoliberal flows in Brazilian and English football
The two ethnographic cases necessitate a more nuanced understanding of what we refer
to as neoliberalism. Focusing on three specific elements of market-based restructuring
of football in Brazil and England, I examine how these elements circulate and are created
as particularly neoliberal within distinct cultural landscapes.
Neoliberal reform and fan citizenship: Brazilian consumers, English fans
I have argued that the perceived transformation of fans into consumers has been a key
element of the commodification of football for both Corinthians and United fans. For
many Mancunian United fans, this transformation led to the gentrification of the clubs
fan-base through rising ticket prices. Additionally, Glazers takeover required many fans
to sell their United shares to the new owner. The clubs privatization and commodifica-
tion disenfranchised many fans who could not afford to pay the exorbitant prices or were
legally obliged to give up their shares, no longer considered valuable enough by the club
and by other fans/consumers. The privatization of Corinthians and the commodification
of the game in So Paulo, however, left many fans in a very different position from their
counterparts in Manchester. With the club mired in debt and facing relegation, fans of the
Movimento Fora Dualib proposed the Corinthians Nation Project to enfranchise
Dubal 139
thousands of new Corinthians Citizens by explicitly reconfiguring their relationship to
the club as consumer-citizens. Below are excerpts from the project, which was presented
to the club and ultimately implemented by its marketing department in February 2008:
Corinthians is not merely a social club, its a Nation and has to become treated as such . . . The
Corinthians fan is our greatest asset and for a long time has not been given any attention . . . The
connection between the fan and the institution of Corinthians should be closer and encouraged
more. The Corinthiano [Corinthians fan] has to be a member of the club . . . has to officially be
a CORINTHIANS CITIZEN.
The potential of 30 million consumers can no longer be ignored [emphasis added]. What we
have to do is value our fans and encourage them to strengthen their connection to the club more
every day. The first step for this is membership. The biggest partner of the club was always the
fan, and with the growth of this partnership we shall have a self-sustaining and winning
Corinthians.
Under this plan, fans pay reduced monthly fees to become Corinthians Citizens, gain-
ing special benefits and discounts while having limited access to many of the social
clubs amenities. In order to gain citizenship, fans actively identify as consumers.
Why do these two particular sets of fans have virtually opposite relationships to con-
sumption and citizenship? Unlike United, which has thus far enjoyed relatively healthy
profits and on-field success since the takeover, Corinthians attempt at privatization via the
MSI takeover failed, leaving the club in even greater debt and the team struggling to sur-
vive in the league. Many fans constantly find themselves in a border zone between reject-
ing corrupting commercial influence in the game and embracing it as an opportunity for
on-field success. As a result of Corinthians predicament, they came to regret the inability
of the club to exploit its brand among its own fans. Marcelo laments how Corinthians
directors have apparently failed to capitalize financially on the clubs national reputation:
I dont know if you know the importance, the size of the Corinthians brand. If you buy a discarded
cup, put the Corinthians symbol on it and say its official, it will sell more than any cup on the
market. The Corinthians brand is poorly exploited . . . why? Because of [Dualibs] administration!
. . . If the professional side was doing a serious job, it would work out, but it doesnt.
Alienated by their club but cognizant of the consuming potential of its fans to relieve the
clubs debts, many Corinthians supporters see themselves as consumers to both claim a
voice as citizens and to produce a championship-winning team. That Corinthians and
United fans developed conflicting relationships to consumption following the privatiza-
tion of their teams suggests that neoliberalism is not as hegemonic as it is often por-
trayed. Neoliberal forms of governance can, as in the United case, disenfranchise and
disaffect fans who often have no say in how this governance comes into being; however,
these very same forms of governance, as in the Corinthians case, can also be adapted
from below as a way of articulating new forms of democracy. Far from being elements
of a coherent process implemented from above, techniques and practices associated
with neoliberalism can be employed by both the powerful and the powerless, resulting in
both empowerment and disempowerment.
From political governance to popular culture: football, the neoliberal world
order, and the unique positioning of fans and owners
Analyzed together within the larger politico-economic structure of global football, many
elite professional Brazilian and English football clubs and their fans can be seen to lie at
different ends of a deeply unequal order. Generally, Brazilian clubs struggle in continual
debt, reproducing a neoliberal world order that requires that countries of the global South
enter into debt management programs to resolve economic instability. As Harvey (2005)
argues, these structural adjustment programs, managed largely by the global North,
attempt to squeeze out surpluses from developing countries economies, while requir-
ing countries to swallow the poison pill of neoliberal institutional reforms (pp. 745).
For Brazil, structural adjustment has meant the privatization of national industries and
adoption of IMF-directed policies, among other initiatives.
If clubs were to be substituted for countries, this process could easily describe the
dilemma of Brazilian clubs like Corinthians. Deeply in debt, Corinthians directors sold
the club to foreign investor MSI, which exploited the clubs resources by selling its tal-
ented young players to wealthier clubs in Europe. In doing so, they created a dependency
relationship that stunts the growth of the domestic game, alienating and frustrating dis-
empowered local fans. The trials of the Brazilian game directly mirror the tribulations of
the Brazilian state; both have struggled through financial crises through privatization and
dependency on restricted forms of global investment. At the other end of this order lie
elite English clubs like Manchester United. United extracts capital from fans in countries
of the global South including Brazil through satellite television rights, while privatiz-
ing and attracting global investors and players to the detriment of many local working-
class fans. These developments parallel the trajectory of neoliberal reform in England in
which reduced social spending, privatization of national industries, and similar transfor-
mations have led to a perceived loss of community.
My argument is not simply that these two orders of power reflect each other. Rather,
by inhabiting both orders simultaneously, fans, owners, and other actors experience simi-
lar neoliberal processes, coming to understand what I call neoliberal reform through
both spheres consciously or otherwise. As citizens of both their clubs and their coun-
tries, many fans understand market-driven governance not merely from living under
Thatcher or Fernando Henrique Cardoso, but also from cheering under Dualib, MSI, or
Glazer. Likewise, owners of both privatized state companies and football clubs, such as
Sibneft
3
and MSIs Boris Berezovsky, practice neoliberal governance by privatizing both
state-owned industries and cultural industries under the publics imagined ownership.
Accordingly, fans and owners ideas about and practices of neoliberalism move through
both popular culture and political governance, taking different forms through multiple
actors. This phenomenon supports Nikolas Roses (1996) understanding of advanced
liberalism, which offers governmentality rather than political economy as central to
neoliberal forms. Instead of conceptualizing political economy as creating a neoliberal
form that then extends to domains such as sport, as Harvey might, I posit a different
Dubal 141
framework in which neoliberal governmentality emerges from friction between different
realms of cultural and political life.
Is it really neoliberal? Situating commercialization within local histories
Even as many Brazilian and English fans object to the neoliberalization of their clubs,
they situate shifting modes of governmentality and their own responses within local
histories. Thus, practices such as privatization and deregulation may not be seen from the
ground as neoliberal per se. Rather, many fans posit and resist them as contemporary
manifestations of historically unjust practices; the struggles by fans to defy these prac-
tices must be contextualized within deeply rooted historical narratives of opposition to
and organization against abuses of power.
For many Corinthians fans, opposition to the clubs neoliberal practices is intertwined
with historical opposition to dictatorship, corruption, and injustice. Gavies was created
in 1969 in opposition to the dictatorial regime of then Corinthians president Wadih Helu.
In the early 1980s, fans and players united in the famous Corinthians Democracy, a
movement designed to elect a progressive Corinthians president (Shirts, 1988). This cam-
paign, led by Scrates, came to be a national democratic model for the abertura, or open-
ing, of the federal government following decades of dictatorship. Throughout this process,
Gavies actively opposed the dictatorship, demanding amnesty for political prisoners and
promoting the Diretas J campaign for direct elections of the Brazilian president
(Ligabue, 2005). In 2008, members of the Movimento Fora Dualib introduced their own
Diretas J campaign, lobbying successfully for the direct election of the Corinthians
president by members instead of an administrative board. They also demanded and
achieved Dualibs expulsion from the club, comparing him not only to Fernando Henrique
Cardoso for privatizing Corinthians, but also ex-president Fernando Collor and his trea-
surer P.C. Farias (involved in a corruption scandal) and Paulo Maluf (former So Paulo
mayor and governor implicated in money laundering). As much as fans recognize the
neoliberal elements of contemporary club politics, they also understand the injustices
they suffer within a longer progression of undemocratic governance; they resist by draw-
ing from a general history of democratic struggles for justice. These understandings are
encompassed within the ideology of Corinthianismo, rooted within the imagined identity
of Corinthians as a club of the working classes. Marcelo elaborates:
I see it like this the Corinthians torcida has this business of being a suffering people. I think
the identity, thats what its about. The MST, the farmers, suffering people who fight for a piece
of land, who fight for a better, more equal Brazil. You know the identification comes from
that. Because the Corinthians fan is also involved in this class the majority of Corinthians fans
are formed from humble people, really poor people, who dont have the means to live with
dignity. I think the identification comes from that.
In the eyes of many fans, identifying as a Corinthians supporter aligns oneself with the
politics and struggles of the poor and thereby supporting opposition to any process or
governance, including neoliberalism, that is seen to support or strengthen inequality
and injustice.
For many FC fans boycotting Glazers United, resistance against the privatization of
the club is informed by recalled histories of Mancunian working-class organization.
Julian, an FC supporter in his mid-40s, remarks:
United fans have always had a very strong base of politically motivated political in the football
sense fans, independent supporters groups who stood together and objected to these [takeover
attempts]. I think theres a tradition about Manchester United . . . Because . . . Manchester has a
got strong union history and a strong political history, a strong left-wing history.
Other FC fans imagine their struggle against Glazer and commercialization as the latest
manifestation of a centuries-old radical Mancunian attitude. Colin, an FC fan in his late-
30s, explains a view shared by many supporters:
FC is a peculiarly Mancunian way of doing things . . . Engels didnt start writing the Communist
Manifesto here for no reason. The labor movement wasnt born here for no reason . . . The trade
union movement came out of Manchester . . . it goes all the way back to the Peterloo Massacre, the
Corn Laws. Manchester is steeped in these sort of radicalisms, this sort of fuck you attitude. And
to me, FC is the sort of embodiment of that. You know, well do it our way, our club, our rules!
Combining a strong sense of local Mancunian identity with the citys unique history,
many FC fans rationalize the clubs creation not as a particular response to neoliberal
restructuring, but as a response to general forms of undemocratic establishment. By
understanding how fans contextualize the current situation within local histories, policies
and actions that might be tagged neoliberal become entangled in friction with more
complicated politico-economic conditions. A potential consciousness of the specifically
neoliberal qualities of changes becomes subsumed by a generalized sense of histori-
cally contiguous, unjust, and undemocratic governance.
Discussion: Rethinking neoliberalism
Through this comparison, we discover several particularities in what we see as neolib-
eralism. First, nearly identical forms of privatization and deregulation result in different
consumptive practices, leading to empowering citizenship for some and class-based dis-
enfranchisement for others. Second, the unique positioning of various actors in both
football and politics enables understandings of specific elements of neoliberalism to dif-
fuse easily through popular culture and political governance. Finally, many fans see ini-
tiatives such as privatization not as particularly new but as continuations of previous
unjust forms of governance. These specificities in what we term neoliberalism force us
to refine our understanding of this doctrine/ideology/process, to which we often ascribe
mysterious and transcendental power.
Problems with Harveys neoliberalism
One might easily but mistakenly interpret the ethnographic data as evidence that neolib-
eralism is but a global phenomenon with local manifestations, as Harvey argues. Even as
Dubal 143
Harvey (2005) portrays neoliberalism as an encompassing hegemonic force, he acknowl-
edges its uneven geographical development (p. 13). He attributes the degree of neolib-
eralization in specific cases to factors such as diversification, innovation, and
competition . . . between national, regional, and in some instances even metropolitan
models of governance as well as some hegemonic outside power, such as the US
(p. 115). While attempting to explain these geographical particularities, he nonetheless
concludes that with neoliberalism comes a universal tendency to increase social inequal-
ity and to expose the least fortunate elements in any society (p. 118). Though the means
may differ, Harveys neoliberalism is essentially universal in outcome.
Like most anthropologists, I am sympathetic to the undeniable suffering that many mar-
ket-driven policies have created globally, especially for already marginalized peoples. But
through a simple, hegemonic construction, Harvey re-inscribes neoliberalism with cohesive
power and is dismissive of the possibilities for difference and exceptions. Hoffman et al.
(2006) describe their own uneasiness with Harveys picture based on their fieldwork:
We found [ethnographic] phenomena in configurations that did not necessarily correspond to
the picture of a standard neoliberal package described by Harvey and others . . . And yet, they
describe situations that are very much connected to the historical processes, modalities of
reform and political transformations associated with neoliberalism. (p. 10)
How can analyses move beyond this impasse, in which standard pictures of neoliberal-
ism preclude more nuanced understandings of the realities at hand? Hoffman et al. (2006)
suggest that an anthropology of (rather that simply concerned with) neoliberalism
begin by analytically deconstituting neoliberalism (p. 10). The disassembly I pro-
pose is based on Anna Tsings notion of friction.
Rethinking neoliberalism through friction
Undoubtedly, a readily identifiable group of values, strategies of governances, and modes
of conduct have proliferated globally; scholars have lumped these global changes into a
set called neoliberalism. But by no means are the elements of this set organized, directed,
or necessarily free-standing. As Rose (1996) remarks, neoliberalism did not emerge as a
project underpinned by a coherent and elaborated political rationality that [neo-conserva-
tive political regimes that were elected in Britain and the United States in the late 1970s]
then sought to implement but that nonetheless, gradually, these diverse skirmishes were
rationalized within a relatively coherent mentality of government that came to be termed
neo-liberalism (p. 53). While Rose writes against an original, rationalized plan for neolib-
eralism, Aihwa Ong (2006) writes against a homogenizing form of neoliberalism. She
notes that it is not limited to advanced liberal democracies and has been used in postcolo-
nial, authoritarian, and postsocialist settings. Importantly, she explains, neoliberalism
migrates from site to site, interacting with various assemblages that cannot be analytically
reduced to cases of a uniform global condition of Neoliberalism writ large (p. 14).
In lieu of rationalizing neoliberalism as an omnipresent, homogenizing, ordered
global phenomenon, scholars would do better to understand what might be termed neo-
liberal flows as they become embroiled in and sometimes reproduced through friction.
Tsing (2005) argues that cultures are essentially co-produced in the interactions I call
friction: the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection
across difference (p. 4). Writing against a simplistic vision of economic globalization
characterized by unimpeded flows, Tsing does not consider friction as a synonym for
resistance. Rather, frictions create the conditions for people like disenfranchised foot-
ball fans to both gain control and influence over their resources as well as to compromise
their position within global power structures. In the case of neoliberalism, friction is a
means of cultural production by which connections and disjunctures are created in neo-
liberal moulds. In the commercialization of football, friction continually appears:
between the injustices of the past and those of the present, between businessmen and
fans, between the global North and South, and between the world of football and the
world of politics. It is through these frictions that a culture of neoliberalism takes form
and develops.
Through neoliberal flows in friction, a more concrete understanding of neoliberal-
ism can be constructed, identifying how these flows have proliferated or stagnated,
through whom, against whom, and so forth. But the underlying problem remains: what
really is neoliberalism? Is it a process? A doctrine? A form of economic globalization? A
mode of governance? A way of life? A universal? A local? Its nebulous qualities, and the
discourse created to match them, make it generally an even more effective means by
which marginalized peoples are disempowered. Examining the concrete frictions
between and among these ideas through specific actors, places, genealogies, and so on,
as I have attempted to do in this comparative ethnography, can help deconstruct neolib-
eralism, perhaps even to great practical effect.
Notes
1. Danny Welbeck is a notable exception.
2. FC players, unlike United players, are involved in creating a sense of community and inclu-
sion. Fans are more personally familiar with players, who are mostly from Greater Manchester;
the majority of the team works locally while playing semi-professional football part-time. As
Jonathan notes, The players come in the pub after the match and meet with the fans. This is
great. And thats what its about its about community. Fans readily identify with many of
the players, who grew up in the same communities the fans did.
3. Sibneft, or Gazprom Neft, is a Russian oil company created in the midst of post-communist
privatization.
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