Dark-skinned pioneers in European national football teams: patterns and stories

Abstract

ABSTRACT A national football team is perceived as symbol of the national identity. One of the elements of European national identity is race. At the beginning of twentieth century on the Old Continent, most of the state teams’ players were light-skinned, likewise the other citizens of their countries. Nevertheless, since the 1930s it has been observing the growing process of appearance of dark-skinned players in subsequent national football teams. The paper explores the emergence of the dark-skinned football players in European national teams (UEFA members). It considers all the 39 cases of the dark-skinned pioneers in European national teams – from Andrew Watson (Scotland, debut in national team in 1881) to Ariclenes da Silva Ferreira ‘Ari’ (Russia, debut in 2018). Based on them, the text distinguishes the seven waves of this interracial transnationalism.