Football is obsessed with nostalgia. At no time is this more evident than during international competition wherein football cultures, nationalisms, and emotion blend into a heady liquor which draws in even the most casual of sports fans. It is no surprise, therefore, that in a football landscape dominated by human-rights-abusing petrostates and governing bodies who are both morally and financially corrupt, we are all (even those of us who weren’t alive then) drawn towards the seemingly ‘Golden Age’ of the game. In that pre-Sky Sports age of shorter shorts, baggier shirts, bigger haircuts, and, as some would like us to believe – better players – many people see the antithesis of the sterile and corporatised experience we have now. Leaving aside discussion of these assumptions which have been covered in myriad ways by football writers much more capable than myself, what the current Euros have shown, perhaps more than any major sporting event in recent memory (until next year’s World Cup, of course), is just how readily and cynically states and corporations will commodify this nostalgia not just to sell us ideas and products, but also to whitewash their image and practices.
For kit-making companies such as Nike, Adidas, and Umbro in particular, this is not a new thing. In presenting their new kits, designers from these companies will more likely opt for modern takes on classic designs than completely original templates in an attempt to capture some of the supporters’ historic passion for the team, to be channelled towards their current endeavours. One could quite easily argue, with Don Draper’s smoke-filled office at the front of the mind, that this is all the corporations are aiming for: a deeper connection between brand and consumer where emotional associations are made and capitalised upon. What is particularly exasperating about the way in which football advertising is used to this effect, however, is that the very forces who are dismantling our game attempt to place themselves within the public consciousness of what that game means and involves. The corporatisation of the sport has brought about ironies that would be laughable if they weren’t so harmful, in particular when it comes to its governing bodies.
Although Pride month has now ended and the British media can go back to its favourite pastime of vilifying trans folk, the weekly outrage in our press during the group stages came when UEFA’s virtue signalling was exposed in the Allianz Arena lighting fiasco. The organisation’s labelling of rainbow flag lighting as a ‘political act’ doesn’t, as they would love, seat them at the vanguard of the fight for an apolitical sport open to all, but instead lays bare the fact that, as with their bigger brothers at FIFA, their values change depending on whichever dictator or oligarch they’re trying not to piss off. Fans of the Champions and Europa League will be all too familiar with the ‘Why do we love football?’ ad, in which a carefully curated cast wax lyrical about the respect and equality inherent in our beautiful game. The irony of this message will not be lost on the likes of Glen Kamara or Demba Ba – two of the many people who have been let down by UEFA’s approach to racism in its competitions, an approach echoed by many of the sports’ governing bodies who have always prioritised the sanctity of their TV and sponsorship deals over the wellbeing of players.
Football’s organisers have, for a long time, been at the whim of state attempts to ‘sportswash’ their public images and these Euros have been no exception. Before getting knocked out by Spain, Switzerland had travelled 8,510 miles between their matches, with a large portion of this coming from travel to their multiple matches in Baku. The capital city of Azerbaijan, a petrostate with a history of horrific human rights abuses by the autocratic government of Ilham Aliyev, has forced its way into popular consciousness by hosting recent events including Eurovision and the Europa League final. The latter infamously denied Henrikh Mkhitaryan the opportunity to represent Arsenal due to his native Armenia’s long dispute with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. As I write this, two Danish fans in Baku’s Olympic Stadium have just had their rainbow flag forcefully confiscated by stewards, a lovely indictment of the compatibility of UEFA’s #EqualGame campaign with its actual practices. Nevertheless, figures such as Aliyev and Hungary’s Orban will continue to ply organisations like UEFA with backroom deals in order to impose themselves onto the international order whilst presenting a strong front to their increasingly discontented populations.