Playing with tension:national charisma and disgrace at Euro 2012

By the time of Euro 2012, deepening tensions of nationalism and internal social struggles were developing across Europe in worsening conditions of systemic crisis. The official football ideology of UEFA conceives Euro 2012 as a civilizing platform for mutual respect and brotherhood between competing nations. In contrast, what I call Hyper-Critical Theory conceives of football competitions like Euro 2012 as part of a de-civilising ‘sports mode of production’ that necessarily produces crisis conditions, alienation and violence on a mass scale, fostering nationalism, militarism and racism. Between these polar perspectives, the figurational sociology of sport associated with Norbert Elias proposes that major international football competitions like Euro 2012 creates and dissipates contingent tensions of ‘group charisma’ and ‘group disgrace’. Study of Euronews ‘post-national’ coverage of Euro 2012 allows their explanatory adequacy to be compared. In a competition structure like the Euros no social group – players, officials, media or fans – is able to disregard entirely the field capabilities of the ‘best minority of 11’ in the serious game of exemplifying the group charisma of nations

Urban football narratives and the colonial process in Lourenço Marques

Support for Portuguese football teams, in Mozambique as well as in other former Portuguese colonies, could be interpreted either as a sign of the importance of a cultural colonial heritage in Africa or as a symbol of a perverse and neo-colonial acculturation. This article, focused on Maputo, the capital of Mozambique – formerly called Lourenc¸o Marques – argues that in order to understand contemporary social bonds, it is crucial to research the connection between the colonial process of urbanisation and the rise of urban popular cultures. Despite the existence of social discrimination in colonial Lourenc¸o Marques, deeply present in the spatial organisation of a city divided between a ‘concrete’ centre and the immense periphery, the consumption of football, as part of an emergent popular culture, crossed segregation lines. I argue that football narratives, locally appropriated, became the basis of daily social rituals and encounters, an element of urban sociability and the content of increasingly larger social networks. Therefore, the fact that a Portuguese narrative emerged as the dominant form of popular culture is deeply connected to the growth of an urban community

Game location influences basketball players performance across playing positions.

Home advantage in sport has been the subject of much empirical work, although the 3 causes underlying this effect are still unclear. In team sports such as Basketball, available 4 literature has analyzed home versus away performances at a team level. The present study 5 investigated the presence of home advantage at the level of the individual player’s position. It 6 also attempted to identify a subset of game-related statistics that could discriminate home and 7 away performances according to each player’s position. To achieve these aims, archival data 8 were obtained from 225 games for the 2004-2005 Euroleague. Players were subdivided so 9 that the “point guards” and “offguards” were pooled as guards (n=493), the “small forwards” 10 and “power forwards” were grouped as forwards (n=485) and the centres (n=233). A 2x3 11 (game location: home and away; playing position: guards, forwards and centres) factorial 12 MANOVA followed by a discriminant analysis was performed. For the guards, the 13 discriminant function was significant and the game-related statistics that differentiated most 14 home and away performances were the successful two point field-goals, defensive rebounds, 15 assists, steals, blocks and committed fouls. The forwards’ home and away performances were 16 discriminated by successful free-throws, assists, steals, blocks and committed fouls. The 17 function for centres was non significant. Results suggested a differential effect of home 18 advantage in basketball players by role in the team, with guards from home teams playing 19 more assertively, whereas in away teams forwards played more assertively. These results 20 provide initial evidence to support a position specific approach when preparing for home and 21 away games in team sports

The UK Netball Superleague: A case study of franchising in elite women's sport organisations

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Sport Management Quarterly, 12(5), 545 - 567, 2012, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/16184742.2012.734525.This paper draws on theories of franchising in examining the emergence of the UK Netball Superleague (UK NSL) in 2005. The focus of the paper is to explore the development of an empowered franchise framework as part of England Netball's elite performance strategy and the consequences of the Superleague for player performance, team success and commercial potential of the franchises. Twenty-two in-depth interviews conducted between 2008 and 2011 with franchise and sport media/marketing personnel inform the discussion. The paper explains the UK NSL as an empowered franchise model characterised by a shift from the centralised hierarchical model of the business format franchise to one which is decentralised and informal and whereby different franchises are characterised by high degrees of diversity in terms of organisational environment and their own structural characteristics of specialisation and standardisation.The Centre for Sport, Physical Education and Activity Research (SPEAR) at Canterbury Christ Church University

Speaking the unspoken: Racism, sport and Māori

In this paper, we consider the silence that surrounds issues of racism in New Zealand sport. We argue that the intersection of two key ideologies – New Zealand’s purported history of good race relations, and the positive contribution that sport is believed to make to racial equality – contribute to a culture of silence in which it is difficult to talk about, let alone discuss constructively, Māori experiences of racism. Our aim is to put the issue on the agenda through engagement with ten experienced Māori sport participants, coaches and administrators whose experiences demonstrate the existence of, and pain caused by, cultural and institutional racism in New Zealand sport. In this aim, we do not seek to hide behind a veil of neutrality or objectivity. Rather, following a kaupapa Māori research approach, our interest is in bringing to light the voices, frustrations and concerns of Māori sportspeople in order to contribute to a much-needed conversation