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Abstract: Nowadays, basing ourselves on the perspective of the ongoing process of globalisation, the mutual interaction between sports and both sociological and political dimensions cannot be denied. Currently, football is the global and widespread sport. Indeed, it has practically turned into a religion and has become a strong national identity builder in many countries (mainly in South America, Africa and parts of Europe). It is also the most important sport in the almost federalised and pluri-national Spanish state. However, it has not only been used traditionally to strengthen the Spanish national identity building process, but also to promote internal peripheral nationalism. Therefore, this research will analyse and substantiate the interaction between football and the regional and national cleavages (analysing the creation of national identities) in the Basque Country and Catalonia (within the Spanish periphery), compared to Madrid (as the main representative of the Spanish political centre). Thus, the Autonomous Communities (regional) selections, and the main clubs (Athletic de Bilbao, F. C. Barcelona) capacity for promoting national identity or nationalist attributed values, will be explored.
Keywords: football, national identities, Spain, Catalonia, Basque country
Introduction
Football is the most important and most popular sport in Spain. Regionalist and nationalist divisions are also more important in the Iberian country than in other European societies. The Spanish Constitution recognises three "historical nationalities" (Basque, Catalan and Galician), and four official languages (Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician). It is also well-known (Duke & Crolley, 1996; Giulianotti, 1999; Dunning, 1999; Seguróla, 1999; MacClancy, 2003; Feixa, 2003; Vázquez Montalbán, 2005; De Waele & Hustings, 2008; or Llopis, 2008b), that sports have been used to build political and national or regional identities. Therefore, the following research seeks to analyse the values added and attributed by football from the social and political sub-state dimension in Spain. It will mainly focus on the peripheral cases in which the impact of the nationalist cleavages is stronger: the Basque and the Catalan cases, compared to the attitudes from the country's political and geographical centre, Madrid. Attached functions, societal meanings, associated aims, or the mere desire for regional governance, that football represents within both Spanish "Autonomous Communities", will be dealt with.
The quasi federalised Spanish state allows regional (Autonomous Communities) football teams. Many of them (and not...