Soccer in Franco's Spain: the symbols of the far-right

Abstract

The emergence of the coupling of a sport such as soccer with the values and ideological principles of a dictatorial state leads to the analysis of the need to observe how the sense of national interest is manifested through the interests of the masses and civil society itself. In the face of phenomena that are so reliable to the construction of identity as otherness, it can be said that soccer becomes a space where multiple identities converge on the vindication of "us" as opposed to "others..." (Fontanarrosa, 2012), incurring in a process of collective identification where the sport per se becomes a common space of identity. This construction, as opposed to collective identity, becomes a political discourse capable of validating the methods and purposes used by dictatorships that boast the use of material power with a wide symbolic charge capable of shaking regional passions and touching the hearts of millions of spectators.