Playing the Jew: anti-Semitism and football in the twenty-first century

Abstract

There are certain football clubs, mostly but not all in Europe, which have become known as being ‘Jewish’. These clubs include Tottenham Hotspur in England, Ajax Amsterdam in the Netherlands and (with relation to its history) Bayern Munich in Germany. As it happens one club for each country. These clubs do not necessarily have actually Jewish players or supporters. Rather, the clubs’ supporters self-identify as Jewish and are attacked by rival clubs’ fans as if they are really Jewish. This acting out of being Jewish seems to have started around the 1970s. In this article I argue that this development coincides with the increasing integration of the countries of the European Union and a corresponding sense by many members of these nation-states that their countries are losing their political identity. Attacking the ‘Jewish strangers’ has become one way of asserting not just club but national identity. Conversely, the identification as ‘Jewish’ can be read as an affirmation of diversity against the fascistic pressure for a homogeneous national population.