Football: between leisure and control

Abstract

Modern football is linked to industrialism. I venture to argue that contemporary western human life looks like football matches: clashes, measured time, fights for ownership and acceptance, supporters acting as political parties, thesis discussions, improvisations, symbologies of socialization, theatricalization of social life, among others. It is necessary to understand how the Brazilian appropriated the sport, as if taking it from the wealthier layers who had introduced it in the country. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Brazilian labor movement was noisy. The emerging Brazilian industrial bourgeoisie, worried about the proletarian union mobilizations, would have made use of less harsh mechanisms such as supporting and financing the sport which had fallen into workers’ hands: football. In order to do so, the historical and social rescue of documents from various associations allows us to observe patronage interferences in club development, controlling them directly and/or indirectly. Since then, the sport has followed its trajectory, permeating policies and adjusting personal conflicts.