Sweden's Commitment Problem

Abstract

would have revealed that these publications are equal-opportunity offenders. Going through my extensive press clippings of England's games against its rivals over the last 10 years, I noticed that the tabloids regularly used offensive, even racist, imagery when England played France (frog eaters, War II losers) and Spain (the defeat of the Armada in the 16th century was invoked frequently). Particularly noticeable was the constant reference to wars-English victories in them and their opponents' defeat-which bespeaks the strongly militarist terminology in all football games (American, Canadian, Gaelic, and others): ground attack, defense, offense, and decoy, just to name a few. This language also attests to the heightened nationalism still prevalent in the allegedly post-nationalist Europe. Indeed, had Beck taken the trouble to analyze the imagery that German tabloids employ when the beloved Nationalmannschaft goes to battle against its archenemies (like England), he would have noticed sentiments similar to the ones used by the English tabloids. Moreover, as any football fan knows, Italian and Spanish publications regularly use militaristic language when they describe German players and teams. None of this nationalistic fervor has anything to do with the particular style of play; it only confirms that the football stadium remains a place where otherwise repressed hostilities can be voiced openly and with little retribution. How else can one explain the fact that shouting Nazi slogans or making animal-like noises when the opposing team's black player touches the ball are commonplace not only in German stadia but in those of the Netherlands, Italy, and Poland? Beck also conveniently fails to mention that the English victory over West Germany in the 1966 World Cup remains highly contested by Germans. I have located several German studies in optics and physics that purport to show scientifically that the ball never crossed the German goal line by the required width when Geoff Hurst scored England's third goal on the way to the country's 4-2 victory. Had England not scored another goal, the final outcome would be viewed with even greater anger and frustration than it still is in Germany today. As Beck rightly argues, it's time that international relations and political science take sport seriously. Few other pastimes move billions of people to impassioned action or create lasting identities. To my dismay, Beck has not helped the cause. If anything, he has hurt it. In