Football, nationalism and globalisation: A comparison of English and Italian football between 1930 and 2010

Abstract

This paper compares the relationship of football and globalisation in England and Italy between 1930 and 2010 along three dimensions. It explores the national origins of players, managers (coaches) and owners in both countries over the longue durée of high modernity. The paper demonstrates that football became an international game within a wider global context almost immediately after its codification in England in 1863. However, it was also strongly affected by nationalistic templates. There was a powerful assumption that clubs, players, supporters, managers and owners would exemplify specific national characteristics. This affected the development of football in both countries from the 1930s to the 1970s. In England, players and managers were predominantly English and almost exclusively British in this period. This pattern was reinforced by strict immigration rules developed around the time of World War I.A similar pattern was evident in Italy. Serie A players were overwhelmingly Italian between 1930 and the late 1980s. Indeed, between 1965 and 1980, non-Italians were completely banned from playing football in Italy despite the provisions for the free movement of labour in the Treaty of Rome (1957). The pattern for coaches in Serie A followed a significantly different trajectory. In the 1930s and the 1950s there was a large proportion of coaches in Serie A from outside Italy, particularly from neighbouring countries such as Hungary, Austria and Yugoslavia. This reflected the much less nationalistic policy for the recruitment of Serie A coaches during this period.